Beautiful.

I immediately thought of our children as they head back to school. Our culture’s obsession with external, physical beauty can put them in a place similar to the beggar. Ads, TV and social media constantly shout what acceptable looks like. And it doesn’t stop there. They might even receive signals to become beautiful from friends and yes, even from us, their family.

Other times, pressure to arrive at Beautiful comes from within. Every day many of us go to our closets, mirrors or make-up bags for the tools we think we need to achieve beauty.

The gate called Beautiful might be the scale we hope will tell us the right number, the gym we join to become the right size or the mall we cruise through looking for the right outfit.

We go to the gate Beautiful and there we beg for what we need for that day: acceptance, approval and affirmation. It’s not enough to sustain us, though. Tomorrow, searching again, we’ll return.

We’ll go back and so will our children. They’re watching us, taking their cue on how to be acceptable from us.

We each desire value and significance. As our children head back to school, they also need to find approval in their world.