"Don't You Know You're Beautiful?"

Have you heard this song? You'll find it being played on your local country music radio station. It's by the American Idol contestant Kelli Pickler. Kelli's a local Carolina girl - she's from Albemarle (spelling?).

I love the song and the video that accompanies it. The message is simply that every young girl is beautiful, from the time we start losing our baby teeth, to greasy hair and acne, maybe we're lucky enough to throw braces into the mix...but all along, still beautiful. And then, we get old enough to let society creep into our thoughts. We see what we think are perfect women in the magazines we read, on the billboards we see, on the marketing posters in the windows of the retailers we shop in...and doubt sets in. "I'm too fat, I'm too skinny, my hair's too flat, my hair's too curly, my hips are too wide, my body looks like a boys"...

I commend Kelli for putting this song out and the writers for having compassion enough for young women to send the message loud and clear. I wish the world were brave enough and caring enough to see that every young girl is awesome and that each of them has something amazing to offer. Wow, what a dull, unenthralled place it would be if we were all the same.

I am blessed to have a number of amazing women in my life - each one different in so many ways and each one offering something incredible to me personally.

And every few weeks I get to spend a weekend with these two...




My daughter (that's Brandi on the left in each shot) and my neice, Christa, couldn't be any more different from one another. But both of these young women bring such joy and chaos and laughter and heartbreak and love and concern and pride and warmth into my life that I find them flawless in my eyes and heart. And it would be my prayer that they see themselves in the same light - they are perfect in our God's eye.

If there's an impressionable young woman in your life, be an encouragement to her. Try not to let society get in her way and cloud her vision to what's real. Make a fuss over the freckles on her face or the gap in her teeth - those are her "signatures", what makes her HER. And be certain to ask her "don't you know you're beautiful?"

And in the words of my dear, dear buddy Cathy...

"Here's to Good Women...

May we know them,

May we be them,

May we raise them"