{guest post} a love letter.

Happy Thursday! I am so honored to share with you this special post from my dear blogging buddy, Katie from Loves of Life! I'm out of town on adventures with Sookie and sweet Katie not only stepped up to my request for a guest post, she went above and beyond with the challenging subject I threw at her. ;) 

Enjoy and perhaps write yourself a love letter too.

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When Tahnie wrote me and asked me to guest post my first instinct was to say no. This has nothing to do with sweet Tahnie, in fact, I adore this lady and her sweet blog. I just thought, I'm hardly writing in my own space lately, would it be right to do? I also thought of the million and one excuses about being busy, and having so much to do between my work at home gig, my kids, church stuff, and you know, regular life. Then I snapped out of it and remembered who we were talking about here.

Tahnie. Sweet, amazing, fighter-of-a-fighter, Tahnie. The lady who defies all odds all day, every day. The one who is a walking miracle. Who gets to enjoy the presence of her sweet and spirited Sookie. Who makes no excuses.

So I said, Ok, girl. For you. And then I said, but what would you want me to write about? When she simply wrote back, A love letter to yourself.

At first I laughed. UM. Whhhaaaa? 

Then I thought, alright, put your big girl panties on, Katie. You can do this.

So here it goes.

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Katie, Kate, Momma, Mom, whatever-it-is-you're called these days....

hi.

It feels weird writing you a love a letter, I'll admit. But I'm going to keep this simple and to the point. It's so, so easy to be self deprecating. But why, oh why is it so hard to tell yourself the wonderful, positive things sometimes?

But here's the thing, Katie. You are so beautiful. Do you know that? The makeup, the hair curling, that's all extra. But you're beautiful just being you. You often think your insides aren't as pretty as they should be. Of course we could all use some work on heart issues---but girl, you're more beautiful on the inside than you give yourself credit for. Your heart is inherently good. You have pure motives. You love people. You love your family fiercely. You have strong convictions about injustice. You love God. You want to live this one life fully.

You know, your outsides are beautiful, too. Actually, the entire body transformation that you went through---losing so much weight, being determined to be healthy and strong and set an example for your daughters? It's awesome, and I'm damn proud of you for that. It's so hard to stay on the straight and narrow healthy path. It's so hard. But you did it. You're a success story. I love that you care about bettering yourself. That you disliked something that made you so uncomfortable (being overweight), and thought, I'm doing this...and you DID. So many people give up. You didn't, Katie. I love that about you.

You know what else I love about you, Katie? You're loyal. When you say you're going to do something--you can be counted on. You aren't flakey. You show up when you say you will. In this life, dependability can be sparse, but you--you are dependable.

I love that when you became a mother, you unleashed this whole other beautiful-mess side of you. It was like the secret garden of your heart that you didn't know existed, and couldn't, until those sweet babies were placed in your arms. It's often messy, but that doesn't matter. You're a good mom, no, a great mom. Know that in your heart.

I like you. No, I love you. You're good, you're more than enough.

xo

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I have to be honest, I'm not sure I'd ever do such a thing if Tahnie didn't mention it. It's actually a stretching exercise :) It's totally weird, but, picking out the good things in you versus the easier, opposite way, of talking about your failures instead is kind of refreshing.