You are lovely.

I'm sure by now you have watched the Dove Real Beauty Sketches. I realize that it is an ad, but to me it felt like a short documentary. It is beautifully made and designed to evoke a lot of emotion. In that it succeeds. I posted the short version on Facebook, but here is the longer version. And you can see so much more, like all the forensic sketches and additional footage here.

This whole idea really speaks for itself, right? I'm sure I can't say anything new about it. We all know what the lesson is just by watching. It's finding a way to remember the lesson that is important to me.

I'm only human. I want people to think I'm attractive, and aging doesn't make that desire go away. But more that being an example of beauty, I hope to be an example of grace. To me, grace is simply saying thank you when you are paid a complement, rather than rolling your eyes and putting yourself down, even a little. (Why do we do that?!) Grace is letting what's inside you shine. I find my grace through prayer, through exercise and through enjoying and thinking about stories in all forms.

The wonderful thing about finding grace is that it tends to make you feel beautiful. What strikes me the most about the women in this short film is they are at their most beautiful after the drawings are revealed. It's like you can see their hearts open and this wonderful gift of knowledge, of grace, comes through their eyes, making them shine. They're skin gets a bit flushed. They look open to the possibility that they are more than they expected. They are humbled. They are stunning.