I’ve been letting Brad do all the talking about these crosses. Partly because he is eloquent and I’m more straight forward, but also because I’m not sure how to tell you what this verse means to me. And maybe I was just a tiny bit nervous to be so open about my feelings. But something happened yesterday that made me realize that we need this verse more than ever before.

I want to preface this by saying that I am not speaking to women only. I believe that everyone, man or woman, needs to know what this verse is telling us about how God sees us.

I don’t know if you all know this, but I also do a little bit of photography on the side. Not as much now that I am busy with Brad in the Barn, but every once in a while I will take a friend’s family photos. Last week I went to a photoshoot of one of my dearest friends. I sat behind the lens and watched a her family laugh, joke, bicker, and run after the littles. I quietly snapped off 800 photos.

Yesterday, I finally sat down to weed through the photos. There were so many beautiful ones, I can’t wait to edit them all. However, there were a few that I had. to. edit. right. then. They were gorgeous!!! And I was so excited to share them with her.

But she didn’t like one of my favorites of her. What I saw was my beautiful friend, hugging her partner close, with an almost-smile like she was about to tell me a secret (because that’s what we do…share secrets lol). But she didn’t see that. She saw something less than perfect. And I was so sad about that. Why is it so hard for us to see how beautiful we are?

God sees our beauty, every day. It doesn’t matter if we are blooming, resting, or fading. He doesn’t decide we are beautiful because we are perfect, we are perfect because we are His. It doesn’t matter what type of bloom we are, wild or pruned, we are God’s beautiful ones.

Love ya’ll…Brandi