BEAUTY

I have three of the most beautiful children by all standards but I don’t take it for granted that they know.

I let them know. I tell them. I make a conscious effort to help them see this aspect of themselves, because I realized in my lifetime that you don’t feel beautiful by just being beautiful. It takes more than having a beautiful image to have a good self-image.

For me, while growing up I didn’t feel beautiful at all, coupled with the fact that I was skinny and teased about being "lekpa" ( a word for skinny in Nigeria ). I earned such names as opelenge, skelebo, lekpa etc. and that always left me feeling like I was different in a not so good way.

It’s amazing how many people now admire the same “lekpa” me and ask we questions like, “How do you do it?”.  Someone recently advised that I start selling slimming products and just say that that’s how I’ve stayed slim to market them, but hey, I want to go to Heaven someday. I try hard not to lie.

Now this is how my self-image was restored…

I was taking a walk in the beautiful outdoors some 19 years or so ago, when it dropped into my heart; It was a sudden knowing that I was special. I’d been admiring the trees, the sky, the birds, the sand and everything around me, when it hit me. I am part of this awesome creation and there’s just one of me! One special me…

I’m an artist and I know how it feels to create something new every time. There’s a sense of fulfilment you have when you create many things that take on unique characteristics, yet are masterpieces on their own. It dawned on me that day that everything that makes me peculiar brings joy and satisfaction to God, the creator of all thing bright and beautiful.

What a turning point.

We are all unique, we are all beautiful. We are created by the Master Artist, the Creator of artistic minds. What is most important is that we look inward and allow all the beauty that He has deposited on our inside to find expression. Only you can be you…and you are BEAUTIFUL.