To My Girls

To my girls,

I have a quick note for you.  My hope is that it some day finds you when you most need to hear it.  When you are looking for yourselves.  When you are feeling lost.  When you don’t know where to turn.

What I want to say is that you are loved.  You have dignity.  You have worth more immeasurable than the stars.

Our world will not tell you this.  Our world will tell you that you need to jump through hoops and pass tests and dance on a tightrope just to prove yourself.  And when you have passed these tests and climbed those mountains and you feel like you have finally won your worth, you will find that still you do not measure up in the eyes of the world.

But please do not despair.  Because what the world doesn’t tell you is that the world doesn’t matter.  The world cannot judge you.  It cannot determine your value or your worth because that has already been determined well before you were even created.

Even the most wicked and vile and ugly and dull and imperfect among us is worth more than the stars and the moon.  And you most surely are not wicked or vile or ugly or dull or any of the millions of other labels flying around looking to land somewhere vulnerable.

I would love to be the one to teach you the dignity of a soul.  I would be eternally honored to be the woman to model for you the assurance that can reside in a soul secure in its worth.  But to be honest and as usual, what I want most for you is what I lack the most and where I am most deficient.

So while a model is the best way to learn, I hope that maybe my words will be sufficient while I wait for the rest of myself catch up.

Today you ran and you leapt into piles of leaves, your giggles filling the entire yard.  You were not self-conscious.  You were not restrained.  Your laughter was not tamed.

Surely growing all the way up won’t always be easy, but my hope is that you remember these years and you hold them in your pocket and one day when you are feeling low, you will take them out, dust them off, and remember that you are still that same little girl who was worth the world.  You always will be.