Why Silly Beautiful?

In fourth grade my homeroom teacher was Mrs. Rhyne. On the first day of school, she made very clear to the room full of 9 year-olds that her name was, "Rhyne like a watermelon rhine and not Ryan like a lion." The pencil sharpener was next to the door in that class. If you sharpened your pencil at 8:24 am you could see the sixth graders walking to band class.

You know how when you're in school there are the pretty girls? Not just pretty girls, but THE pretty girls? The ones whose hair was always silky, whose nails were half polished from sleepovers they were still sending notes about? Even though your parents spent half of your adolesence assuring you that'd you'd never remember elementary school, you probably remember the pretty girls. If you were her: you knew it. If you were not her: you knew that, too. Pretty girls can't help being pretty, it just kind of descends on them like dew kissing strawberry leaves in early April fields. Come to think of it, pretty girls usually have names like April Fields.

In fourth grade we wrote an awful lot. Once we had to write an essay about what we would do if we were left alone in a shopping mall overnight. Having grown up on a tobacco farm in rural North Carolina, I'd only ever been to a shopping mall for two reasons. It was either September, school was about to begin and that meant it was time for a new pair of white leather keds, or I was going to eat dinner at the K&W restaurant with my Mom and Nana.

In class that day we all stood and read aloud. Lisa Cendoma stood and read that she would go to a store called Sam Goody and buy all of the Paula Abdul tapes and all of the New Kids on the Block tapes and bring them back home to share with her friends. That was the moment that I knew I was not cool. I don't remember what I wrote in that essay, but I was the only kid in the class who had never heard of Sam or Paula... and I was also the only girl who wasn't wearing a New Kids on the Block button the size of her own head on her New Kids on the Block t-shirt (which was tucked in to her tight rolled jeans, and secured with her brown leather braided belt that went under and back through to face down.)

I'm a huge fan of the band Waterdeep. Their first song from the Everyone's Beautiful album is called "He will come." It begins:

Soon it will be hammered into what she calls her silly head
That she really isn't silly but she's beautiful instead

The rest of the lyrics are at the bottom of the page. Hope I don't get in trouble for printing those.

I was 21 and in college before I heard these lyrics. Standing on the cold linoleum floor tiles in the girl's dormitory, brushng my still wet hair and getting ready for psych class, I couldn't believe what she had sang. I had thought about what it meant to be beautiful for a long time. Years later those were the lyrics that I sang over my son, just moments after Pete and I welcomed our first born child into the world and stared into his warm pink cone head.

I had always been quick witted, eager to joke and laugh... optimistic and just naturally silly. Finding the silver lining comes as naturally to me as being cool comes to the pretty girls in life. But when I became a mom I felt beautiful. I felt feminine and purposed and intentional. Being a mommy is my greatest earthly joy.

So many young girls, grown women and old ladies are searching to find fulfillment. There is a God shaped void in us all that brings fulfillment and joy when it is filled with His love, in His Spirit by His Son, Jesus Christ. I hope that this blog will help every silly woman, every nerdy woman, every sporty woman... every literate woman feel beautiful in the Lord for who she is just how He made her to be.

(The illiterate women should feel special too, they just, you know, can't read this...)

--sadie s.h.

He Will Come

Soon it will be hammered into what she calls her silly head
That she really isn't silly but she's beautiful instead
But every time she gets a hold of something pretty, it slips away
So she keeps hoping that someday soon

CHORUS
He will come. He will come
He will comfort all that's hardened
change the deserts into gardens
and we all will see His face.
He will come. He will come.
He will soften all the starkness
Break the chambers of our darkness
and we'll all be overwhelmed
She spilled her coffee in her Chevy on the way to work at 8:05
She always thought that she was clumsy and she hated it and wondered why
She can handle any tragedy that happens but not little things like this
So she keeps hoping that someday soon

CHORUS

Within the world of a girl, the words she hears they mean an awful lot
And the music in her mind when she gets older has the lyrics she was taught
and when she gets to heaven all the right things will be said
And He will look on her with favor

CHORUS

All my scars will turn to fountains
All my valleys into mountains
And we all will see His face
All you watchmen lift your voices
Then every boy and girl rejoices
when we'll all be overwhelmed