Because you think you aren’t pretty enough…

Or you don’t like the wrinkles you’re seeing on your face…

Or you don’t like your teeth…

Or you don’t like your hair…

Just remember….

Your face is a combination of hundreds of people who were in love throughout time. 

How much more beautiful can you be than that?

My mother always hated having her picture taken. I have pictures of her but very few with her smiling. The ones I do have with that beautiful smile are so precious to me.

I don’t really like my pictures when they’re taken either. I don’t like the way I look because I don’t like the way my smile looks. It seems like I’m posing and I don’t look natural. I even use a photo that’s almost ten years old on my Outlook profile because it’s one I actually like.

But after reading the quote on Facebook that began this post, it gave me a whole new look on picture taking, as well as how I perceive the way I look.

I never thought about the way I look being a part of how others before me looked. Yes, I know people have said how I resemble my mom, and how she looked a lot like her mother. But I’ve never thought about how far back the resemblances go. 

My face is a combination of my mom and dad, which is a combination of their parents. Which is also a combination of their sets of parents. And so on. We can keep on going until we get into hundreds of people that we’re related to, and who’ve contributed to our lineage. And our looks.

Those relatives may not look anywhere near the same as we look today, because of different styles of clothing and hair and other facial expressions.  But if we look closely enough, the resemblance is there.

Early pictures of my mother show a beautiful young woman, her exciting life ahead of her.  A life she was excited about. I have no pictures of my mother’s mother at an early age, but I can imagine those pictures would show the same resemblances.

And looking at my own baby pictures, compared to my daughter’s baby pictures? And her firstborn daughter’s pictures, you see a stronger resemblance than ever.

So why do we not like our own pictures, the more we see them? Because we’re looking at them with our own eyes, rather than through eyes of generations before us.

We may change somewhat as the years go by, but that strong family resemblance in the eyes and other facial features don’t go away. And then we see ourselves in our children and their children.

And so it will continue through future generations.

All because two people fell in love and created a beautiful combination of themselves.

It’s certainly something to think about.

 Like I just did.