Things I Learned from my Kids--Entry 42

Tell people they "look pretty" more often.

My kids tell me this all the time, and it always causes me to stop and smile. It really brightens my day. I was thinking about this, and it seemed wasteful to me to see something pretty and not mention it to someone. It seems such a simple thing one can do to make an enormous difference in someone's day, so I've been trying to do this. The other day I saw a girl sitting in the hall outside of my classroom who had these great tan pumps on, so I said, "Those are beautiful shoes." Last week I passed someone on the stairs who had on this awesome fuschia sweater, so I said, "That sweater looks beautiful on you." I have a feeling people cannot hear the word "beautiful" used in reference to themselves too much. I know I can't.

Phillipians 4:8 reminds us, "For the rest, my brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things have hoour, whatever things are pright, whatever things are holy, whatever things are beautiful, whatever things are of value, if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, give thought to these things." (NIV)

Seeing the beauty in the day-to-day stuff doesn't always come easy. We encounter a lot of "ugliness" every day. As with everything else, practice makes perfect here too. If you make it a point to look for beauty and respond to it, you'll have an easier time recongnizing what's beautiful (and what's not) in your own life. And beauty should always cause us to lift our hearts toward Heaven in praise of the Creator of all things.