"He was the first guy to say I was beautiful.”

For the last week and a half my daughter Kami has been pursued by a young man who took her on a few dates.  He initiated it.  He came after her.

The reason I feel the need to start by saying that is because this was a powerful moment in her life. 

I don’t think it’s new news that we have walked with her through various seasons of her questioning her beauty and her future wondering if a guy will be attracted to her, inside and out. 

I remember when she was only 9 and I was putting her to bed and she quietly said, “Dad?”

I leaned toward her soft voice and replied, “What, baby girl?”

“I don’t think any boy will ever want to marry me.”

I was taken aback as you can imagine.  “What would make you say that, Kam?”

She lifted her little hands up showing them to me and said, “Look. Look at my hands.”

I knew what she was saying and the following minutes of conversation where ones where I was fighting back tears as I was tenderly declaring truth to her tender heart.  She was becoming conscious of the fact that “This equals That” in our culture.  That “being liked” was deeply connected to “being pretty”, and that “being pretty” was almost completely an image thing, and that her image had some differences that would possibly prevent someone from wanting to “marry” her.  It’s a pretty young age to put all that together, but she did, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do to undo what was happening in that moment of recognition and reflection.

I could share with you a plethora of times when her image became front and center in her mind as time went on and she watched boys flocking to her friends, but not to her.  She never was asked to a dance, though she did ask a boy to a dance one time and had a blast dressing up and getting pictures taken with him.  They had a fine time, but I think she views that vapor of a season as something she initiated and, thus, writes it off as ‘her doing’.

I think it’s only been felt more acutely as her sister has been pursued by a young man and begun dating.  She never makes Aly feel bad about it as far as I know, but I think the pain is felt as she sees her sisters being liked by boys as she sits on the sidelines waiting for someone to notice her and pursue her the way she witnesses it happening in her sister’s lives.  The way she sees it happening to almost everyone else she knows at this point.

Going to college plays a part in the rise of consciousness.  Her roommate has a serious boyfriend and so she is seeing closely the patterns of pursuit playing out regularly…almost daily in some way, shape, or form.  Her other close friend in college has a boyfriend as well, so even though she is very close with them, she has experienced the “third wheel”-feeling quite a bit and this feeling has become a “natural habitat” of sorts for her.  She has ways of talking herself through it, coping, making up a narrative to survive…but the framing of her story won’t diminish the deep desires of her heart--one of them being: “I really want someone to like me for me and to pursue me with attraction and affection.”  It’s not different for any girl…so this isn’t unique to her.  It just hasn’t happened for her…so it is a place of deeper sensitivity, I think.

So when this young man Snapchatted her recently to go “on a date” and then proceeded to take her on another date, she was flattered, though a bit guarded.  She didn’t want to put her heart out there to be hurt, but she started to put it out there regardless, “gaurdless”.  He even texted her after the second date and asked what she was thinking and feeling and she responded back by saying that she enjoyed their times together, but was wondering what was motivating him to ask her out right now.  You see, this guy had been a good friend for many years, so she was curious as to what caused him to seize this moment as the time to let her know that he had some feelings for her, or was at least curious enough to see if his feelings were real.  He replied to her that he felt drawn to her for a while but wanted to wait until he knew whether he could trust his feelings because he didn’t want to ruin their friendship or make things awkward if it didn’t work out.  She respected that.  She didn’t want that either.

They went on a third date to talk more about it and to make a long story short, he told her that he didn’t feel the timing was right to become more serious as she was heading back to school and he wasn’t feeling “settled” inside about pursing the relationship further right now.  I think she understood where he was coming from, but by this time, she had really let her heart have feelings for him and began to wonder about what it would be like to date a guy, for real.

She held her crap together in the car as they talked it through.  One thing that I loved about this young man was that he looked at her and told her point blank: “You are one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever met and I really love who you are as a person.”  As she talked with our family later in the living room—tears streaming down her face—she acknowledged the power of being told she was pretty and beautiful. (She was no longer holding her crap together)  She said that she’d heard that from Heidi and I, but that it felt so different being told that by a guy.  I cried as I heard her express her heart and her hurt with such poignant words and emotions.  I put my arm around her as she went from one wave of emotion to another trying to piece together what had just happened.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this young man did nothing wrong.  I respect the way he treated my daughter and even the way that he shared his honest confusion with her about the future, his future and their future.  I wouldn’t want him to dive in head first with lingering doubts just so that Kami wouldn’t be hurt.  She has more dignity than that, as does he.

But it was tragic watching her heart get yanked around in a matter of 5 days with such ferocious passions playing tug of war within her.  One moment, she was calm and collected.  Another moment letting herself feel infatuation.  The next, methodically mapping out worst case and best case scenarios to protect her heart.  The next chucking caution to the wind and letting herself feel the full range of emotions that come with the ‘laws of attraction’.  It was a wild ride to watch.  I’m delighted she got to take it.  I think it showed her that it’s possible and, frankly, inevitable at some point.  I really believe she now knows that a good-looking, smart, God-loving man ‘can’ be drawn to her, find her attractive, and like her.  These questions that loomed in her mind were finally answered, at least in part.  I’m not saying there aren’t some latent doubts remaining, I’m just telling it how I see it.  She experienced and witnessed something that she wondered whether it would ever happen.  For that, I am grateful.

There have been many tears in the last days of her time at home with our family for Christmas vacation before she heads back to college, but also many shafts of joy bursting through the clouds.  God has used this rollercoaster to grow her heart and to move into the future with hope and healing.  I’m no dummy…I know the road ahead is going to be hard at times, but I’m grateful as a dad that another lad came along who was a pretty awesome guy and spoke some things into her heart that she wondered if she’d ever hear from anyone other than her mom and I.  Thank you, God.

I know my daughter is beautiful and that she will make some man very, very happy in the future.  She is a caring, thoughtful, graceful, spunky, creative, sentimental, intelligent girl that will light up someone’s life.  I trust God to lead her to that man and for God to be working in that man to lead him to her.  My heart aches for her “loss”, but my heart leaps for her “lesson”.  I’m choosing to see the “lesson” in the “loss”.

God, thank you for letting her know in no uncertain terms that “she is beautiful.”