There’s a mother I know, she’s not what the world would consider beautiful on the outside. She’s pale, overweight, stressed, she struggles in her marriage and you can see hurt in her eyes when she looks up and tries to smile.  She believes in God, but feels like she’s not good enough for God’s standard, so her light dims. I can see the heavens shed a tear in the moment that the beauty of her life is missed.

We were at our house making Valentine's cookies!  So fun!  Her little 6 year old acted as children do and spilled pink frosting on the table.  She was short tempered and yelled. Children act in the messy curiosity of life, get icing all over the table and sticky candy hearts all over the floor. Moms yell and get annoyed at the mess.  The other children then look down, the joy of fun drained out of their face. It’s brought to their attention that they are not, “doing it right.”

It’s as if the cleanliness of the table is more important than this frosting-spilling 6 year old little guy.   That is not beautiful or attractive.  The hurt in mom’s heart is coming out and it expands the unattractiveness that is appearing on the outside. It sucks the joy of life out of the moment.  The room somehow feels less light and the air thicker.  Everyone looks down for a moment, then pretends nothing happened, and then goes back to decorating their heart shaped cookies.

I saw in that moment too, a different kind of potential beauty, the kind that comes when you can see, really see, what is real, the actual truth.  If she could learn to respond to that truth, how would that look? 

She could have stopped and looked at the frosting mess of a 6 year old with the hearts surrounding that messy frosting.  She could have seen the beauty of life in the heart of that child and said, “Wow!  Look how you’re creating a well frosted cookie!  It’s got so much frosting, it looks like a pink frosting slide right onto the table!  How fun! Your heart cookies could slide right off and land in the frosting party that’s all over the table! Are you having fun?  When you’re done, let’s get a rag and clean the table ok?”

In this scene, the child looks up with a happy smile and look of excitement and responds, “Ok!” as he finishes with joy frosting his heart cookie. His heart is happy as he places a heart shaped sprinkle on his heart shaped cookie because his heart feels beautiful, joyful and loved.   Beauty has been created including the mess.  A little child looks with love in his heart at his mom who shows him love because of how she is a being of love.  This would be beautiful and if she’s choosing to create beauty all around her, it’s because of who she is inside, and it would show up on the outside.

Here in this view, her skin brightens, her eyes smile and the whole energy around her attracts as the hurt in her heart is lifted just a little because she’s choosing love instead of hurt. This alternate reality, that flashes in my mind as a possibility is filled with love.

You can see it all around because you feel it in who she is being.  She looks beautiful and transcends the worldly beauty you didn’t see at first  with the inner beauty you feel. All of a sudden she’s glowing and her beauty is radiating.  I saw that possibility, all of a sudden in that moment. 

In that moment I felt the reality and truth of how we create with everything we do, but it's so much more than what we do.  What we do is a reflection of who we are. Who we are comes out and there is no hiding the truth of it, especially to those who are not afraid to see. The ones that don’t look down but keep their eyes steady and see what is.  Those are the ones who have cultivated awareness and know the importance of how what happens inside always shows up on the outside.  You can’t hide who you are.  Ever.

This is my new perspective. 

In my old life I had everything.  At least that’s how it looked from the outside.  My heart wanted a beautiful home, marriage, children, career, house cleaners, nanny, employees, fame, fortune and church involvement. All the things that look beautiful on the outside.   We wanted it all.  We did it all and had it all.  And was it real?  No. 

Why?  Because just like that mom who yelled at her 6 year old for spilling frosting, she missed the heart he was decorating.  She missed what the heart was teaching.  Her pain was bigger than the beauty she missed.  So she was trying to control around her to create what she thought she wanted and that covered up the message the heart was trying to send.  The beauty was missed.  

I missed the beauty before in my life. I thought I had it all, and yet just still wanted more.  I wanted to work for more instead of seeing what was right before me. I wanted to control the things around me to create what I thought I really wanted while covering up the message my heart was telling me.

Now that that perfect life is gone I see so clearly, that beauty missed.  It’s still there.  It’s still present, I didn’t see it till I lost it.  The gift in that, is that I see it now and as well as what was then.  I know how I used my pain and need for things to be a certain way. My control was used to cover up what is real and the beauty of all that is around me. I won’t let that be hidden again.

For that mom, the pain became bigger than the guidance of her heart.  So when the frosting spilled, it made the hearts they were decorating together disappear.  The love it represents.  That is a true tragedy. 

For this mom, me, I see now how my pain won’t become bigger than the guidance my heart gives me.  I am decorating the heart within myself to become love.  It looks messy, but I don’t want that love to disappear in the wants and desires of things that can’t be. The lies I have tried to live unknowingly, that covered up the truth around me and in my heart.  Nope.  I won’t succumb to a true tragedy. 

What I saw in someone else’s experience, taught me what I needed in my experience.  It’s always easier to see how someone else is missing, failing or not doing it as well as you think you could or are.  Then the question to ask is; can you see that same lesson in yourself?   That’s where the truth lies and truth does not lie.  It’s always present, you just have to be present too, to find it.