Thoughts from a Mama's Heart

Sharing this with Dayna's permission. Just some mommy reflections.

I had a chance to see things through my daughter's eyes today. I was in her 4th grade class this afternoon, and the students had a project involving gleaning pictures from old magazines. It didn't take long for many of the students to stumble across ads for Smile Train/Operation Smile. The reactions happened quickly, and in this order:
1) Ew...that's so ugly
2) (to my daughter) Is that what you looked like?
(thus, in her mind, she became ugly to her classmates, although that's NOT what they meant....just poor filters and slow processing on their part.)

I tried to kindly and matter-of-factly answer their questions, and took my daughter's personal story out of it. Still...she has some bruises on her tender heart this afternoon that we're talking through. I love that she knows the hearts of her friends, and that they didn't mean to hurt her. But my heart still hurts for her.

We see these faces and see children. Sometimes we forget that those who don't look into these faces on a regular basis see something that is "broken."