Stories in this episode: Wendy's childhood is fraught with bullies and self-doubt until she asks God to teach her what her parents knew all along; A run-in with a trampoline right before the family reunion sends Cassidy into hiding, but she can't hide from the Spirit; When artist Melissa can't find herself in museum paintings of Heaven, she decides to take matters into her own hands. For shownotes and more, go to ldsliving.com/thisisthegospel. Follow us on facebook and instagram @thisisthegospel_podcast TRANSCRIPT KaRyn Lay  0:03   Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host KaRyn Lay.  Today, we're talking about beauty. And I have no quippy intro or funny anecdotes or poems. I don't even really have a good etymology lesson about the word beauty for us. Because here's the thing, defining what is beautiful in today's society, and how that's connected to our worth, and our value – that's a really hard thing for me, personally.  I mean, I can look at some flowers or a flaming purple sunset over the ocean, or even a baby wrapped up like a burrito, and somehow I know that there's beauty there. But how those things are beautiful, and why some things are beautiful to me and not to other people? That's just confusing. Maybe you feel the same way, or maybe you think I'm nuts for being tied up in knots about all of this.  But all I know is that I kind of need something or someone a little bit smarter than me to break it down and teach me the truth about beauty and its place in God's plan.  So if ever there was an episode where I need stories to open the door to new spiritual insights, this is the one. And that's what we're going to do today. We'll listen to three stories from three storytellers who grapple with ideas of beauty, and learn something about themselves and God in the process.  Now, I have to acknowledge that all of our storytellers today are women. And I really wanted to find a story about beauty from a man, because I know that women are not the only ones wrestling with this ideal. But hopefully, regardless of gender, we can open our minds and recognize ourselves in these stories. Our first story today comes from Wendy. Our first story today comes from Wendy. Wendy  1:47   So when I was a toddler, I was at the grocery store with my mom, and she was going down the aisles and a woman with a bunch of teenagers came up and pointed at me and said, "Hey, look kids, that kid doesn't need a Halloween costume. She's already got one." And then they all laughed and walked off. And my mom was so shocked. She didn't know what to say.  When I was about two months old, I had a little red dot that was right center of my forehead and it started spreading out and it was a hemangioma, which is a blood tumor. And it was coming out like a golf ball off the top of my head. A hemangioma, it's got lots of blood vessels in it, you can't take it off because there's too much blood, things, going on in the head.  It's kind of purple and red. They usually will deflate a little bit when the child is older, more like nine or ten. Until then you just have to live with it.  So I knew I looked different. My mom was always trying to comb my bangs so that they would cover my forehead. I always had bangs right to my eyebrows, but I was an active kid. So you'd run around the bangs would split and you can't cover a little . . . a ball on your head. So no matter what we did, it was always showing and then I would forget that I had it and then run into a new person that didn't know me, and they would stop and stare and look at me and . . . if it was a kid, well, even sometimes adults, then that's when I would get teased for it.  So when I was in preschool, I was going to a religious school and the teacher told th