Perfect fingernails make me feel pretty

The excerpt below is taken from a book titled A Mother's Footprints of Faith, by Carol Kuykendall. We hope this story could be a great reflection for all moms. Happy Mother's Day. We love you moms! (TS/05/08)

I sat on the floor in a circle at Kendall's preschool with a group of mother's and children singing, "Where is Thumbkin? Where is Pointer? Where's Middle-Man?"

Every new phrase brought a new set of fingers from behind our backs. We were having great, giggly fun...except for one thing. I was feeling especially frumpy that day, and next to me sat a pretty mother. With perfect fingernails.

As the song went on, I felt the lure. I too wanted perfect fingernails. Surely they would make me just as pretty.

This wasn't the first time I longed for perfect fingernails. At meetings, I watched women make dramatic hand gestures with perfect fingernails. At the grocery store, I watch women check ingredients on labels with perfect fingernails. At the bank, I watched the tellers punch buttons on the computer with perfect fingernails. In my mind, perfect finger nails made these women pretty.

As I sat at Kendall's preschool that day, I studied my stubby, eneven, fat fingernails. On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store and nonchalantly dropped a fingernail kit into my cart. The box promised I could create "pretty, perfect finernails, instantly and easily, in the privacy of your own home".

They were definitely wrong on the instant and easy part. As soon as I got home, I disappeared into the bedroom, closed the door, and spend the next two hours shaping, glueing, filing, polishing, and refiling my ten new nails. Finally I emerged with an at-home, non-professional-looking attempt at perfect finernails. But for me, they were a vast improvement.

For several days, I couldn't take my eyes off my fingernails. I began talking with my hands more and pointing a lot, at something in the newspaper or a phone number in a list. I touched my face more often, resting my chin in my hands. My kids said I was "acting hot" with my new nails, which wasn't meant as compliment, but I brushed their words aside. I felt kind of pretty.

Yet something strange started happening. I fouhd myself worrying about my perfect fingernails and protecting them. I couldn't do lots of regular things, like make beds with fitted sheets, or pull weeds, or help my daughter saddle their horses. I started carrying glue and Band-Aids around in my purse for small on-th-spot reparis or cover ups, and constantly fiddled with my broken or ragged nails - especially early in the morning, a time usually set aside for praying or reading my Bible. It always seemed like that's when I noticed new flaws in my nails. So instead of praying, I often ended up filinf or repairing my nails.

Sometimes I got upset with other people when something happened to my nails. Like the afternoon our family attended a big picnic party and I pulled a tab off a pop can for my daughter Lindsay without realizang what it would do to my perfect "Middle-Man" nail. I snapped the tab - and half of my fingernail - right off. "Rats!" I said angrily, handing Lindsay the can, as if my broken nail wat her fault. "Mom, those finernails make you mean," Lindsay told me, and then marched off.

For the rest of the afternoon I felt self-conscious and irritated. Irritated with my nails and irritated with myself. And my feelings began spilling over into the world around me.

By the time I got home, I knew that my fingernails had to go. They made me feel pretty, but Lindsay was right. They also made mean. So I disappeared into our bedroom and pulled them off, one-by-one, all nine-and-a-half of them. When I emerged, my nails looked extra ragged, but I actually feel liberated.

I knew I'd been in bondage to those perfect fingernails. I had thought they would make me feel pretty, but the pursuit of them was taking me into the wrong direction. I recognized the signals and so did others around me. It was those our-of-control feelings that helped me know it was time to get back on track.

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Book Information
	Taken from A Mother's Footprints of Faith by Carol Kuykendall. Copyright © 1997 by Carol Kuykendall. Used by permission of Zondervan, www.zondervan.com.” Book Summary: The title of this book is A Mother's Footprints of Faith : Stories of Hope and Encouragement and it was written by Carol Kuykendall. Publish date is February 1999. ISBN is 0310225620