It was Easter Sunday as I dressed my two little girls, ages 3 and 7, for church.  It was the 70’s and Winnie the Pooh dresses, a frilly Easter bonnet, and white patent leather shoes were in style.  At last we were ready to put our hats on and leave for church. That’s when the fight with my three-year-old began.  “I not wearing dat hat,” she loudly proclaimed!  “Of course, you are wearing this hat; this is what I bought for you to wear;  please wear it for Mommy!”   “NO!”  “I don’t like it, I don’t like it,” she screamed.

I couldn’t believe I was having a FASHION tug of war with my three-year-old on Easter Sunday of all times. Thirty minutes later, off to church she marched in the Winnie the Pooh dress, minus the Easter bonnet.  Little did I know that this episode was the beginning of many tug of war matches the two of us would have in the years to come.

The 80’s came along and with them came “the fly bangs.”  “You’d look so cute with straight bangs and a long pony tail,”  I insisted.  “NO!  I want fly bangs.”  And so, I stood back and  cringed as I watched her brush those bangs to the left and right, and then plaster them down with hair spray.  She’d then march out of the house; a very confident eight-year-old that she was in style.

As a parent, I thought it was my duty to introduce her to activities that would enrich her life, as well as prepare her for adulthood.  Thus, I enrolled her in piano lessons.  “NO!”  “That’s not what I want to do!”  “I want to take dancing lessons,” she protested.  Again I insisted, “You need to learn to play the piano so you can be the church pianist when you grow up.”  “Besides, I’m afraid if you learn to dance, you might go to un- Godly places.”  “But,  Mama, I don’t want to be a belly dancer, I just want to dance!”  Of course, she won again.

By eighteen, it was time to think about career options.  Being a schoolteacher myself, I thought it was the perfect job for a woman.  I just knew this child of mine who had been protesting everything I had ever suggested for her to do, starting with the Easter bonnet, would love teaching.  Can’t genetics spill out from me just one time in my life to this child?  But, the all familiar protest of  “NO,  I want to major in Fashion Merchandise.”

And with that, I finally gave up trying to be my daughter’s Fashion Designer, both Inside and Out.  She had a mind of her own of what she wanted to wear, as well as what she wanted to become.  But in the process, I learned a very valuable lesson from those tug-of-matches.  The way the limb on a tree is bent, is the way it will grow.  You can’t unbend the limb and make it grow in the opposite way that it was formed.

My little girl is all grown up now and a Mom herself.  Her name is Heather, the creator of CREATED WOMAN,  which is being viewed by thousands each month here in the United States and several countries abroad.

Heather’s vision for this website is to encourage women to become all that God has created them to be both inside and out.  Included in her vision statement for this site, she states:  “Being a Created Woman touches every single part of the world you live in!  Living out your full potential in every stage of your life whether you’re a teenager, college student, single woman or mom, married with children, career woman or grandmother, your life will leave a legacy!”

I have to believe that Heather’s vision started with her saying “No” to an Easter bonnet that she felt was not right for her to wear, and “Yes” to the call of God on her life as she allowed HIM to Fashion Her From the Inside Out to become what He created and formed her to be in my womb.   [Psalm 139:13-16]

What about you?  What are you saying “No” and “Yes” to in order to pursue the plan and purpose that God has bent, shaped, fashioned, and uniquely designed you to be?