A Real Good Life by Sazan and Stevie HendrixSample

Who do you talk to in the mirror when you start your day? And what words do you use?

Look, it’s pretty impossible to have a good day that builds a good life if you’re using harsh, negative, painful words as your mortar. I find that we women make it all too easy to speak terrible things over ourselves. We even say awful things about ourselves to each other. My friend will tell me my skin looks good, and I’ll tell her I’ve got a zit ready to go nuclear. Stevie will compliment how I look in a pair of jeans, and I’ll tell him the reasons I need to hit it harder in the gym. What is up with that?

Here’s what I know.

When my daughter and I stand in front of the mirror together every morning, when I’m making my meditation the long strokes through her hair, there are things I would never say to her. So why do I say them to myself?

Owning this one day and finding the good in my life is based on loving the way God made me. It’s knowing that I can still speak life and gratitude instead of criticism, even in all of the insecurities, chaos, horrible haircuts, and bad hair days. I want my daughter to look into the mirror and to know that God made her special. That there is nobody else in the world who looks like her, that her DNA is unique to her. He created her, me, my mother, and everybody else . . . to be so unique in their own way.

There is something so special in knowing that God said, “I'm going to make so many children that are going to walk on this earth, but they're all going to be unique. They're not going to look alike; even identical twins will have differences that make them unique, even to their fingerprints.” I think God did this with the intention of reminding us that he doesn’t want us to be like anyone else; otherwise, he could have just cloned us and gotten on with it.

Prayer

Father, thank you for creating each of us to be unique and special. Please help me to love the way you’ve made me, and please forgive me for being unkind to myself. Amen.

This reading plan is based on the book A Real Good Life by Sazan and Stevie Hendrix. To learn more about the book, visit their website .