When You’re Beautiful
It is truly astonishing to step back and look at what today’s society deems as beautiful. Photos of perfectly posed models, television commercials, and the fashion industry all provide the same picture of what makes a person “beautiful.” Society, especially women and young girls, buys into this airbrushed image, completely skewing reality and setting an expectation that is very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Despite this unlikelihood, girls often feel they are unworthy because their reflection in the mirror doesn’t look like the definition marketed to them.
Corbin author Tonya Moreland is on a mission to right this image problem. Her picture book, When Am I Beautiful? (Heart to Heart Publishing Inc., $16.99, www.tonya-moreland.com), assures girls of all ages that they are beautiful just as they are. The story begins with a little girl watching her daddy tell her mommy that she is beautiful. When the little girl asks her daddy when she herself is beautiful, her daddy names any and every situation in which the little girl might find herself and assures her she is beautiful in all of them because she is created just the way God chose her to be.
Moreland’s two daughters and husband played a big part in the writing of the story.
“I am so very blessed to be married to a man that loves the Lord with all his ‘heart, soul, mind, and strength.’ Because of his love for our Savior, I never doubt that he loves me the way Paul instructs in Ephesians 5:25, ‘Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.’ The demon-
stration of this love toward me, and the close observation of it by our girls, was the inspiration for When Am I Beautiful?,” Moreland writes on her Web site.
Touching illustrations by Bremen resident Jeanie Shanks Kittinger paint the perfect picture of this loving family story. Hidden in the illustrations are hearts for the reader to find along the way.
One is never too old to hear encouraging and positive words, making this picture book an ideal gift for any age.
