My sister, the most amazing person I've ever met.

Seriously.

I wish I wasn't related so that people wouldn't think I was biased, but oh well. You'll just have to take my word for it. She really is an amazing person.

When she isn't teaching kids with special needs, she's raising my little nephew, working on the side doing flower and bouquet arrangements for weddings, baking these amazing cakes and pastries, taking care of her husband, helping out with the youth group, involved in church and now...writing her own songs!

When she and I were young - in elementary school through high school - we used to sing duets together. I remember in middle school she almost disappeared for several months, locking herself up in her room to learn how to play the guitar. She emerged playing all kinds of hymns, folk songs and other stuff just from the few chords she had learned...later, when she went to college, she became the worship leader of the church band and sang every Sunday. She has this natural gift for anything artistic...

When we were in high school, I would go to her room and we would record all kinds of pop songs on our little tape recorder. One of our favorites, aside from the Christian songs we liked to sing, was by the Indigo Girls - we loved singing and harmonizing, "The Power of Two."

I write this and was inspired to write about her emerging talent as a singer-songwriter, when she emailed me yesterday with a recording of a song she wrote called, "How Beautiful It Is." She had just sent it off to a song-writing contest, which will remain unnamed (until she wins it! I hope) and it really made me so PROUD. Everytime you THINK you know someone close to you - watch out - you have no idea just how deep their talents, ideas, beauty lie...She's really understated about her talents, but they have grown an emerged in unexpected ways over the years and I can't help but feel amazed whenever I see how much talent and beauty she possesses, inside and out.

I feel lucky to be her sister, and even luckier to be her friend.

Once I get her permission, I will link the song to this site.