M is for Mirror

Tweet

Pin It

Dear Miss Esmé,

 

You are my mirror.

You are me.

 

Oh, not in every way.  You are blessedly independent.  You’re my opposite in social graces, and I’m thrilled.  You drive me mad trying to figure out what motivates you – since it is so different than people-pleasing me.

 

But I watch your facial expressions, your turns of phrase, and I see me, I hear me.

 

I love how when you find an exclamation point at the end of a sentence, you have to go back and re-read the sentence, yelling it out for emphasis. 

 

I smile with a twinge of pain when I hear you talk about what you are allowed to eat on your “diet,” which usually consists of strawberries, broccoli, mango, and tomatoes, which you “don’t like but they are still on your diet.”

 

I know you look and learn.  And I am tempted to strive to become a better, more perfect mom. 

 

But I know how preposterous that is – and how easily your hypocrisy-detector skills will pick up on it.

Instead, I pray for transparency.  I want you to see all of me – the smudged mirrors and dusty house, the idiosyncrasies, the warts, the weaknesses, the flaws.  I want you to see right through me…

I must become less, so much less,

That You become greater still.

Lord, empty me of anything

That keeps me from what’s real.

For only through my weakness

Can Your power be fulfilled!

Lord, I want to become so much less

That You become greater still.

        ~Larnelle Harris lyrics

I love you, my amazing, beautiful, clever, dilly-dallying, energized, following, grace-filled, hidden, indomitable, Jericho-miracle, kidlet, loved, mirroring baby girl!

 

Your Mom

-------------------------

Each birthday, I write a letter to my baby girl.  This year, the year of the amazing 5-year-mark, I’ll be working from A to Z.