the photo above courtesy of bing

You know, I had someone to say to me last week that no matter what picture I sent to them; I was always smiling and they thought it was GREAT! but what they didn’t know is that those glorious 32’s weren’t always so eager to smile at one time – I hid that smile because it wasn’t a smile I wanted people to see – I wanted them to see how beautiful “I WAS”, NOT HOW BEAUTIFUL MY SMILE WAS. And the reasoning why goes a little something like this:

When I was a young girl, I had trouble identifying whom I was – I knew that I came from a single mother who had suffered much abuse and neglect in her own life and because of looking for love in all the wrong places, she had me at 16. As I grew older, not really knowing my dad; I had very strong Identity issues, I wanted to become and be everyone else outside of who I was. I was ugly – this was very apparent by the taunts and bullies at school, not to mention the unnecessary fights after school that I didn’t ask for. I was afraid to look in the mirror for quite some time; all because I wasn’t ready to face the UGLY girl that everyone else identified with.

Then one day, I had a teacher to tell me “Oh Darling, What a Beautiful Smile you have” Of course I didn’t notice, I was too afraid to look in the mirror. Thank You? I said, but in my mind, I was like “Was she really talking to me? After she told me that, there were countless others just like her who told me the same thing….I would find myself smiling but hurriedly wipe it away as if I shouldn’t be doing it. And they would say, Oh No; don’t stop – Keep smiling, you have a Beautiful Smile. After hearing that on numerous occasions, I started practicing smiling in the mirror a night – when everyone else was asleep, I finally got the courage to look in the mirror as I was curious as to what was everyone else seeing – that I had not seen.

Don’t Frown – You Never Know Who’s Falling In Love with Your SMILE!!

Slowly, I began to spread my lips apart, the more my lips spread, the wider my smile had become. I noticed when I did it, my whole face lit up! What was this and what was happening?!! I noticed how bright my eyes looked and how beautiful that smile made me look, period. I may not have been the prettiest girl, but I learned to embrace the best thing I had going for myself; which was my smile, A smile has a way of bringing healing and restoring everything that was once broken down in a person’s life, it has a way of brightening every pathway and lighting every room.

A smile also has a way of bringing water to a very destitute and dry place in someone’s life. Therefore I say to you today – take the courage to really look in the mirror and find something about you that you truly love. Don’t ever think that you don’t have anything to offer or that you don’t have any “perfect” qualities about yourself because as I’ve learned if you have a smile – Then you have everything you need and more…

 

Creator of A Blog, A Magazine. It’s JustsumInspiration, Author, Speaker & Encourager