No stained and dirty

My beautiful Lauren has her first tryout for Nutcracker tomorrow, and although I would love to see her up dancing on the stage at Christmas time, the true joy this week has been watching her twirl around in ballerina outfits believing with every fiber of her being that she is a princess. And it’s true; she is a beautiful, happy, carefree, loved, confident princess! A princess that is starting Kindergarten in 2 more days. I can hardly believe it, before I know it, it will be 6th grade and boyfriends. And I find myself asking God, "can’t she just stay 5 forever?" No stained and dirty God, I NEVER want her to feel stained and dirty.

Stained and dirty. I don’t know that I quite understand how it is that we go from twirling in princess dresses to believing we are stained and dirty. I don’t suppose it has to be any one thing, but things happen somewhere between girlhood and adolescence that we all of the sudden no longer believe that we are beautiful. Is it our changing bodies, is it hormones, is it just part of life, part of growing up?

I hear about and know so many broken women, with hurting crying little girls inside and I desperately want to pull that little girl out, wipe the ash off of her face, put a beautiful dress on her, and twirl her around until she gets dizzy and falls down giggling. I don’t understand why we are wounded. I don’t understand why some of us seemingly hurt the way we do burning with loneliness, fear, insecurity, pain, memories, shame, and regrets. I don’t know why our hearts burn so tenderly with pain. I suppose it is part of living in a fallen world, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I don’t like it. And I just want to pray today for all the woman, teens, and beautiful little girls still twirling innocently in their princess dresses. Because today, just for a moment we all have the opportunity to go back. To let our minds slip back to the place before “it” happened. Whatever happened that first left you feeling dirty and stained, go back and tell that little girl she is okay. She is beautiful. She is loved. She is not broken she is not damaged. She is healed, by the loving beautiful scared hands, she is healed. Burdens at the cross, head in His lap, healed.