Can a pear-shaped body be beautiful? What about a wider-than-average smile? Can crooked teeth fit inside the box labeled “beauty”? How about freckles? Or love handles?

How about a mid-life body? I mean, let’s be real. The last time I had perky breasts I was at Knotts Berry Farm, freefalling 120 miles-per-hour on a ride called The Parachute Drop. Can I still be beautiful?

            How do we broaden the repertoire of shapes and images we find beautiful?

            I’m still working on this one myself. For starters, you and I could follow the example of Anne, who found magazine pictures of “real” women in every size and shape and taped the images to her fridge and mirrors.

            We could follow in the footsteps of Kaitlyn, who transformed her idea of “beautiful” by, several times a week, standing naked in front of a mirror and telling her body that it was beautiful, starting with her feet, then her legs, then her arms, and so on.

            Like my friend Karen Kartes, we could travel abroad, expanding our boundaries and, in the process, falling in love with the beauty inherent in diversity.

We can also tell the critical voices in our heads to shut up for a few minutes, and start listening for the still small voice of our Creator as he whispers to us. And this is what we will hear him say…

“I knew what I was doing when I made you. You are wonderfully made. I know you, inside and out. In fact, I knew you when you were still in your mother’s womb and I’ve loved you from the very beginning. If you could see my face, if you could see my eyes and how I’m looking at you with such love and delight right now, you’d see yourself differently, too. You’d begin to realize how beautiful and precious you really are.

“The truth is that your beauty and worth aren’t tarnished because a fickle society gets a whim, or because your parents aren’t perfect, or because someone didn’t love you the way he or she should have. These things didn’t make you beautiful or precious, so they can’t unmake your beauty or your worth. The truth is that your beauty and your worth are bestowed by Me, redeemed through me and revealed in me. And I would give my life for the chance to, every day of your life and on into eternity, show you and tell you truths about your beauty, worth, purpose and destiny.

“How I long to show you what I see when I look at you! You will never see it in a mirror. Or even in the eyes of a parent. Or find it in the embrace of a lover. Oh, you may catch glimpses there, but they will be distorted and fleeting and will only leave you yearning and desperately searching for the next illusive glimpse, and the one after that, and the one after that.

“You are scraping your knees in the dirt, peering through peepholes in the fence, while I long to give you the keys to the gate and walk with you through the garden that is, well… you. I created this garden. And if it’s being held hostage by weeds and disarray, I can redeem it. And as you and I cultivate and explore it together, you’re going to be amazed, you really are! There is beauty and magic in this place. And intention. And design. And treasure! And I haven’t even begun to share with you all my wonderful plans for the future!  

“But I can’t show you who you are while your eyes are glued to the mirror.  Everything you long to see, I long to reveal to you. You are beautiful. You are loved. There is mystery and purpose in your design. Will you let me show you?”

It’s a little foreign to me, but I think there is a segment of society that doesn’t turn to food when upset. I didn’t think such a creature existed. For years I thought that people who get upset and don’t eat were like werewolves or vampires or even tooth fairies. But sometimes I actually meet one of these elusive creatures. Someone says, “I’m too upset! I can’t eat a thing!,” and I do a doubletake. I fight back the urge to hold up a mirror and see if they have a reflection. Who knows? Maybe vampires are real, too.

Inside scoop: At that very moment I was SUPPOSED to be writing a book on parenting but I called my publisher five weeks before deadline and said, “I can’t write a book about parenting right now! The thing I’m PASSIONATE about–the place I’ve been living in for months–is figuring out how to experience hope, happiness and peace even when circumstances are a mess! THAT’s the book I want to write! Can I? Can I pleasepleaseplease?”

I was thrilled. Grateful. Energized, even. 

I’m STILL energized by the subject.

Which is a good thing.

It means SOMETHING in my life is pumped up. Because with gas over four bucks a gallon, it’s probably not going to be my 4Runner.

Our little Boston Terrier of seven years has a tumor growing on the side of his head and there’s nothing we can do.

At least that’s what it felt like when I came home from the vet’s office last week and broke the news to Buddy’s best friend in the universe, my 13-year-old daughter.

Kacie cried. I cried. Buddy licked himself and begged for a doggie cookie.

If I thought there was nothing we could do in the wake of the bad news, I was mistaken. In the days since then, we’ve been busy indeed. We’ve been playing catch, going for walks, watching movies, having canine slumber parties with Buddy and TJ, our other doggie. We’ve also done our share of reminiscing (“Remember when Buddy was eight weeks old and you snuck him in a blanket into Kaitlyn’s high school Christmas concert and everyone thought you were holding a baby until he started barking?”) Finally, we’ve had to keep up with all the non-dog-related living that keeps going on because, well, it just has to.

We thought we had another couple weeks with the little guy, but we don’t. The tumor’s getting bigger every day. Buddy’s starting to act sluggish. This morning I told Kacie it was time, that I’d made the appointment with the vet. 

Her bottom lip quivered but then she squared her chin and said bravely. “I want us to make him steak for dinner.”

I said, “Of course.”

“And mashed potatoes.” 

“We can do that.

“And I want him to be able to eat in the dining room. On TOP of the table.”

“On top of the table?”

“And eat off the good china.”

It wasn’t only a dog’s life, but the last meal of a dog’s life. It seemed like a fitting request to me.

That was many hours ago. Now it’s nearly midnight. Dinner’s over. Dishes are done. Kacie’s asleep upstairs, Buddy snoring at her side, and I’m sitting here thinking about goodbyes. 

Sometimes when endings are near we feel a little lost, like there’s nothing left for us to do. But endings can be busy times. There’s grieving to do. Memories to make. Honor to give. Love to celebrate. Goodbyes to say. Comfort to give and receive and sometimes even potatoes to mash.

We’ll miss you, Buddy.

Some of my leftovers have been around so long, they’re starting to get their own junk mail. Others have evolved even further. They’ve gone way past the junk mail stage and are approaching higher intelligence. Forget the Lillian Vernon catalog. I looked in there today and found last year’s tuna casserole reading the Wall Street Journal.

I always know when it’s time to clean out my refrigerator. It’s time to clean out the fridge when I run out of Tupperware. Once I cleaned out my refrigerator and ended up with so much Tupperware I got the hostess gift PLUS the stacking sandwhich caddies.

For years I thought, what’s the big deal with diet and exercise? I always figured if I got unhappy enough with my body, I could always hire someone to fix it, right? Kinda like when you’re living in a house and the floor starts to sag and you just call in a handyman. And if the house is really falling apart and a handyman isn’t gonna to do the job, you go to the next level and call a tradesman like a plumber or something. And if the job ends up being too big for a tradesman, you call in a general contractor. Simple, right?

So a couple months ago I had a consultation with a plastic surgeon. He declined the job and referred me to an architect and said, what with the amount of remodeling I’d need and all, I might have to look into a rezoning permit as well.

I didn’t think that was a good sign.

Besides, that sounded like a lot of surgery. Okay, I admit, at first I wondered if you COULD have too much plastic surgery, but then I met a woman who had a face lift, tummy lift and butt lift and now she’s two feet off the ground.

I spent Saturday morning in Manitou Springs, Colorado at the Annual Emma Crawford Coffin Race where I joined several thousand people to watch an hour of white-knuckle competitive racing featuring three dozen homemade coffins on wheels.

I learned a lot while I was there.

For instance, I learned that the real Emma Crawford lived in Manitou until her untimely death in 1890 and that–when her dying request was to be buried at the top of Red Mountain–her fiance and eleven other men worked in shifts to carry her remains 7200 feet to the summit. After nearly forty years of rain and erosion, the granite at the top of the peak gave way and Emma’s bones washed down the side of the mountain. She’s buried now in Manitou. No wonder coffins on wheels are the theme of an event honoring a woman who traveled as much after death as she did.

But that’s not all I learned.

When one of the coffin racing teams consisted of 12 men dressed like Elvis, I was informed that a single man dressed like The King is called an “Elvis” but more than one are referred to as “Elvii.” This is because “Elvii” has been officially designated as the plural form of the word Elvis.

I don’t know what’s scarier: The fact that I’ve lived 47 years without this crucial bit of information, or the fact that there’s even a need to come up with a plural form of the word Elvis.

I just returned from Amarillo, Texas where I spoke at the Civic Center to 298 women at a fabulous event hosted by the Paramount Baptist Church. Nicki Mason, Kristy Hollis, Kathy Yates and others put on one elegant shindig if I’ve ever seen one! I’m delighted to have made so many new friends!