When she looked at herself, she saw flaws, weaknesses, scars and imbalances.
When I looked at her, I saw one of God's most perfect creations.
I saw a complete woman.
Most of us -- save the egotists -- are our worst critics. We see all of the mistakes, errors, issues and scars in part because we have lived through and with them. We know ourselves pretty well, but our vantage point may well be a little too close.
Take a flower -- any flower. Viewed from a reasonable difference every flower is the picture of beauty, of an incredible creation. Get really close, however, and the small variances, the little differences, the minor blotches and irregularities stand out. And the perfect becomes flawed.
So she sees from her close proximity what I do not, because I am not in her skin; I am looking at her from outside her skin.
But there is another reason why she sees what I do not: I love her. And while love is not blind, it sees the beloved differently. Where she sees scars, baggage, flaws, irregularities, I simply see a complete woman. I do not think she has flaws, nor scars, nor baggage, nor irregularities. Instead, those things she considers her scars, flaws, baggage and irregularities are a vital part of who she is. And I love all that she is.
It is not that I do not see these "shortcomings" she thinks she has. I do see them. It is just that I don't see them as "shortcomings," but as important pieces of a complete woman, and a woman I love. So while she sometimes worries about her "baggage" and thinks no one, including me, should have to deal with her "baggage," all I see is someone I love, in her completeness and totality. And I happen to love all of her, as she was, as she is and as she will be.
This can be hard for any of us to accept -- that someone can love parts of us we do not love ourselves, that someone can love us for our "flaws" as much as for our more obvious strengths. But if we truly love someone, we love all of them, even the parts they do not love themselves.
And if they love us, then they feel the same.
That's just the way love is and the way love sees.
