April 13, 2016 – Sunshine Lane

Always feeling
rough and tumble,
and all bony angles
when compared to the
graceful, true
Southern angels
of my family,
I often thought
I was a mistake.

I loved baby dolls
and playing house,
digging tunnels
in dirt,
eating mud pies,
chasing butterflies,
with a smudge on my skirt.

I climbed trees,
played stickball,
saved horned toads’ lives,
then I dreamt of
knights in shining armor
while I lay on the ground,
watching clouds in the sky.

My hair, long and fine,
was reddish and wild;
I had a chip in a front tooth
that you saw when I smiled.

I dressed up for school
and especially for church,
admonished to stay neat
and out of the dirt!

As a teen in the days
of Charlie’s Angels
with curves and with wings,
I was a plain one,
no makeup in sight,
and so far as curves?
I never saw such a thing!

One day a boy told me
I was a princess,
and I wanted to believe,
but, really, plain,
skinny, awkward, and
silly ol’ me?

A decade further on
a young man, he whispered,
“You’re beautiful,
just the way you are,”
as if he didn’t see the scars.
My heart jump started then,
and I danced with the wind.

Finally a man,
truly won my heart,
by working and fighting
for years, very hard.
He calls me sweetie and princess,
most every day.
He broke my heart
a couple of times,
but someone else came along
and smoothed the scars
all away!

That someone else,
He’s called the great I AM,
said, “To me you are
perfect, my daughter,
you see,
full of energy, beauty
and grace,
I made you to be
in this exact time and
this place.”

“You will grow older,
your skin start
to sag, your sight
will become dim,
and your knees will go bad.
But when they look on your face,
it’s my Son they will see,
and the light will be radiant
with your beauty and grace.”