HOW DO YOU SPELL PRETTY?

She makes me laugh sometimes.

At a school program Dasia grabbed my wife’s arm, “Mommy, mommy, mommy!” We love our beautiful, 8 year old chocolate-skinned friend. But Nancy, who remarked, “I look pretty white and old,” isn’t mommy.

“She’s not thinking,” Nancy said, “She’s just saying whatever comes into her head.”

I remember when this came into her head.

“How do you spell your name?” Dasia asked Nancy. “Don’t look; I’m making a picture for you.” She worked hard on her crayoned creation. Looking around the room, she could see her picture would be taped to the wall with others from Nancy’s many young friends.

Dasia announced. “It’s ready, it’s a picture of us, and it says: Nancy is pretty.”

The jubilant little girl with her labor-of-love artwork was momentarily forgotten as Nancy thought: “What will people think? I can’t hang that up; I’m not pretty.”

The scene depicted a house adorned with seven hearts. There were three smiling stick figures. A large heart outside the house had the names Dasia, her brother Darryl, and Nancy encircled. Above a crayoned tree it said, “from Dasia to Nancy.”

“Nancy is pride” bannered the top of the picture.  Dasia hadn’t asked how to spell that word. So based on her pronunciation, “pri-dee,” this is what came out of her head.

Out of her head--what comes out of our heads for pretty?

The Apostle Peter knew pretty. “It’s not your outer appearance. Rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.”

To Dasia; a person who is kind, caring, fun to be with and is interested in her is pretty.
Maybe her head can’t spell pretty, but Dasia’s heart can.