This morning, I am sitting in my garden, looking around and remembering… Life!
My children are teenagers now. They are growing, changing, discovering who they are, and slowly creating lives of their own.
But when I sit here quietly, sometimes I can still see the little children they once were.
I remember them running through this garden, playing with water, laughing, chasing each other, helping me with the plants, making a mess, and simply being children. Sometimes nostalgia gets me in a big way.
Well... Motherhood, right?
As I remember those years and prepare myself for the years ahead of us, I find myself wondering, “Of all the things I have told my children, what message do I hope has stayed in their hearts?”
I used to sing a Brazilian song to them every night called Não Há Outro Igual a Você, by Arautos do Rei.
This song has a very special place in my heart because my sister Elaine started singing it to me after our mom passed away. It is a simple children’s song with a very powerful message:
God created each of us in a unique and perfect way. There is no one else exactly like us.
This is what I have always reinforced for my children to believe:
You are perfect as you are.
I have said those words with such certainty because when I look at my children, I believe every single one of them.
However, sitting here surrounded by all those memories, a question came to me.
Do I believe those words about myself?
Do we?
We are so good at seeing the beauty in others.
When they struggle, we encourage them. When they make a mistake, we remind them that one mistake does not define who they are. When they doubt themselves, we remind them of everything they are capable of.
Yet when we look at ourselves, we often pick up a magnifying glass.
We see the wrinkle. The mistake. The failure. The decision we regret. The part of our body we do not like. The dream we never followed. The person we thought we would be by now.
But what if we put down the magnifying glass and looked at the whole piece?
Maybe then we would finally see it.
The masterpiece that we are.
A beautiful piece of art is not made from one perfect color or one flawless brushstroke. It is made from all of them. The bright colors and the dark ones. The confident strokes and the ones where the hand trembled. The layers we carefully chose and the marks we never planned.
Our lives are no different.
There are beautiful chapters we wish we could live twice and painful ones we would never want to read again. There are mistakes, scars, victories, losses, laughter, tears, love, fear and courage.
But look at what all those colors have created.
YOU!
Maybe we have spent too much time trying to correct the painting and not enough time standing back and seeing its beauty.
Those dark colors did not ruin the artwork. They gave it depth.
Those mistakes are not the whole painting.
Those scars are proof that the canvas survived.
And those blank spaces?
They are not what is missing.
They are possibilities.
Because...
Our masterpiece is not finished. We are still here, holding the brush.
This is our life, and it is happening now!
There are still colors we have not used, dreams we have not followed, places we have not discovered, love we have not shared, and parts of ourselves we have not met yet.
So perhaps the words I have spent years giving to my children belong to us too:
You are unique
Believe in yourself.
There is so much inside you.
Work for what you want.
Do not be afraid to show your true and beautiful colors.
Ten days ago, we began this journey with one small step: saying “YES” to ourselves.
Maybe Day Ten is not really the end.
Maybe it is the beginning of what we choose to create from here.
So, my friend, my question is...
There is still so much canvas in front of us waiting to be filled.
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