"Pretending Pretty"

pret·ty

1. Pleasing or attractive in a graceful or delicate way.

2. Clever; adroit: a pretty maneuver.

3. Very bad; terrible: in a pretty predicament; a situation that has reached a pretty pass.

4. Ostensibly or superficially attractive but lacking substance or conviction: full of pretty phrases.

If I read through this list of possibly definitions for pretty, the one I most identified with a few years ago is...

#4: Ostensibly (apparent, seeming, pretended) or superficially attractive but lacking substance or conviction. 

But doesn't every woman want to be (including me)...

#1: pleasing or attractive in a graceful or delicate way?

Graceful, delicate, non-threatening ... peaceful.  I mean, this girl would have composure.  She would carry herself well and exude confidence;  she would have a presence about her that silently exclaimed, "I am a beautiful daughter of God, and I am loved!"

I wanted to be that pretty.

Gosh, it's hard.  Being a woman is hard.  Not to sound cliché, but women are bombarded with all that is opposite of attractive, graceful, or delicate.  Was high school like that for any of you?  For me, high school meant an eating disorder and a wounded dignity.  Ugh.  I knew I was hurting, but eventually that hurt became an ache I 'just got used to' and it throbbed and throbbed and throbbed.

I was simply 'pretending pretty.' 

(I will not attribute the remainder of this post solely to Creighton, but it played an integral part in it.)

con•vic•tion

1. a fixed or firm belief.

This is a scary word, huh?  Fixed seems so permanent, but isn't it what women need  -- a solid belief  we are pretty?

After years of feeling achy, I wanted to know this truth, but I didn't know where to find it.  This wasn't something Dr. Google could solve... so, I prayed instead (smile).  I asked God to help, and He answered my prayers in the most unusual way.

In His infinite wisdom and creativity, He introduced me to charting...

Someone once shared with me: to calm chaos, simply start by bringing order to it.  That said,  charting brought order to my 'chaos' --- the chaos left from years of a wounded dignity. Through the patterns and predictability with every cycle, I began to see myself a little clearer in my chaos; through a different lens I saw I was wonderfully made, and my body was working with me and not against me.  The charts uncluttered things for me enough to acknowledge my insecurities.  Once I acknowledged them, I unraveled the slew of negative feelings and emotions that accompanied those insecurities and began to heal.

Cycle after cycle, I remember working through some very deep wounds -- it was an ugly process, but I have more peace and happiness now than before I began charting.  That's got to account for something!  Did charting solve all my deep self-worth issues?  No.  But it certainly helped work through the thick of it, and I can say with conviction, today:

"I am pretty."

***

How about you? Are you pretending pretty?