It was a cold, snowy day, and Joe and I went to visit his next door neighbors, Aunt Ag and Uncle Jack. Aunt Ag had just been shaking out the rugs in their small home. Her face was flushed with that glow that never ceases to come when we do housework. She had on jeans, and a rather trendy looking tee-shirt; one that one may say was too young looking for an 80 year old woman. She welcomed us in, and told us to take a seat at their kitchen table. Right away, I noticed, she was really just looking at—ME. After every little pause in the conversation that she was having with Joe, she looked at me. I could tell she was basically sizing me up. She was thinking, “Is this woman good enough for my Joe?” It took her all of a minute to do this, and then I could just tell---I was in. She confirms this by saying “Did Joe tell you what I’m going to do at your wedding?” I sat there confused for a moment thinking “What does she mean MY wedding? She just met me!” THEN I realized she meant JOE and I’s wedding! Ooohhh……“I’m going to sing, and yodel!” she said.
Now, I happen to have heard yodeling in my lifetime, which, contrary to belief, is not actually something that most Americans get to experience. I heard it in the back woods of MAINE, at a Christian camp, from a church group who apparently wanted to bless the peacefully vacationing campers, with their yodeling. Granted, it was for God, but still--- I struggled to appreciate it.
Well Aunt Ag definitely was excited for her yodeling debut at, apparently, MY wedding. Joe sweetly asks her if she could do it for us then. Right then. In the kitchen. Uncle Jack, who has been mostly quiet with only a few polite interruptions to Aunt Ag quietly turns and walks away when his wife happily agrees to yodel for us. There. Then. It is THIS point in the story where I must add that Aunt Ag, after agreeing to sing for us, walks over to the kitchen counter, picks up a plastic margarine container, and says that she’ll be back. She had to go put in her teeth. From the margarine container, which obviously is the keeper of her dentures. BooM! Something in me tweaks. I wasn’t sure what it was. Then a moment later, she walks into the room, shyly twisting her hands, and says “I feel a little weird, but I’m going to do this.” BooM! The thing inside me tweaks again. This time I am beginning to realize that I am watching true vulnerability stand in front of me. Aunt Ag walks over to Joe, puts one hand on his shoulder, and begins singing “I wanna be a cowboy’s sweetheart”. Reader, it was amateur, it was weak, but it was SO, extremely beautiful. Aunt Ag stood there in her kitchen, singing her heart out because she knew that she was wanted. She knew Joe, who she loves, wanted to hear her yodel, and wanted me to get to experience it. In the chorus is where the yodeling began. She did it carefully and happily. I couldn’t even watch her, I was afraid I’d lose it. No, not in laughter, but in tears. The BooM inside me was crying out “LOOK AT THIS WOMAN! She is real! She is vulnerable! She is sharing her heart! She is 80 and comfortable in her skin! She is singing because she loves you. She loves you, and she JUST met you.”
THIS is the kind of beauty that the woman in me longs for in other women. The kind of beauty that shares itself, even when it’s not perfect. The kind of beauty that takes a risk, of rejection even, for that small chance that maybe instead, it will be not only accepted, but be the catalyst for more beauty. We shouldn’t WAIT until we are 80 years old to allow this beauty in us to be released. We should start practicing NOW, inspiring others NOW, offering our beauty NOW. BECAUSE we know we are loved by the Father, we know there IS no rejection that can even tempt us to hold back. We are accepted and loved by Him, which propels us onward toward accepting and loving others in our lives. What a simple way to begin doing that---just by allowing our beauty to be exposed.