May 15, 2004

• The Thorn in My Flesh

  With God, there is always victory.  
   
  For years and years, I had a thorn in my flesh which often hampered my ability to follow God with freedom and confidence.  It came in the form of an insecurity I felt about the way I look.  Whereas it is true that every girl has general insecurities about her looks because she compares herself with the world, mine originated with the fact that I was born with a “birth defect” called a cleft palate.  Because of the stigma of the words “birth defect” and some teasing from my childhood, I was sure that I was ugly, unseemly and unbeautiful.  This agonizing thought wrenched my heart and stripped me of any sense of confidence.  When it came to relating with others, a wave of insecurity would often wash over me of how “un-cool” I was and made it practically impossible for me to step out, share my thoughts and ideas, life and love with others.  I would hesitate, refrain and hold back in fear that they would wrinkle their noses at me and shirk back in disgust.  As a result of my insecurities, I lost so many valuable moments with people and missed out on many of the experiences of life that I’m sure God had dreamed up for me.  Many people did not come to know me and Christ in me because I feared too much the idea of being known.
   
  I knew it was destructive to my ability to truly live, but I didn’t know how to be healed from those deep wounds in order to be all that God had created me to be.  

  But God knew.  
   
  At that time, two of the closest people in my life were continually compelled to squelch the lies that were running through my head.  One of these dear friends wrote to me, “He chose you because in His eyes you are beautiful, gifted and charming.  That’s it.  He made you the way you are because He wanted to.  He loves all of you.”  And the other, a colleague, said to me one night in the middle of a ministry staff meeting, “Mary Ann, I want you to know that I think you are such a catch…  Don’t put yourself down.”  Their words of affirmation brought tears to my eyes.  I was taken aback by the love and grace in their words and simultaneously filled with disbelief as to its truth.
   
  You see, for longer than I could remember, there had been a broken record that played in my head every single day of my life.  It said unflinchingly, “No one will ever want to marry you.  You’re just not beautiful.”  
   
  So God intervened.  One Friday a few years ago during a fellowship meeting, the message that kept being repeated was, “God made you and He thought that it was good.”  It was God’s way of setting up the stage.  The next morning, I came before the Lord and asked, “Really?”  I brought my hurts before Him as raw, open wounds, and I just cried and cried and cried.  
   
  In response, the Lord brought me to Luke 1.  What a disgrace Elizabeth must’ve been and what agonies she must’ve suffered during those long years because she could not have a baby!  And the thought came to me, why did God let her agonize all those years if He was gonna give her a baby anyway?  The answer?  A very personal drawing of her to Himself.  He chose to do it that way to reveal Himself to her in the most clear and poignant way.  And, in reading all this, it was like He said to me that when He was creating me in my mother’s womb, He put His finger on me and especially crafted this “mark” to say, “Spare her.  I love her.  I do not want to toss her out.”  He had a special plan to reveal Himself to me in a way that no one could ever grasp.  It’s true.  I would’ve never come to know Him if it weren’t for my birth defect.  Years of lies were being torn up in that moment.  Psalm 139 hit me hard as I heard Him say, “You are not an accident.  You’re not a mistake, a manufacturing defect or booboo.  You were not meant to be discarded.”  These truths set me free.    
   
  And yet still, I painfully remembered all the surgeries and all the ridicule, and in agony, I cried out, “Lord, am I so hideous?”  He enveloped me with His love, reminded me of Song of Songs 4 and said, “I love you more than anyone ever will.”  
   
  But even so, I anguished, “But, Lord, what of people who think I’m dull, not pretty?”  And He said, “It’s not applicable.  Stop putting one foot in this world and one foot in my Kingdom.  My standards for perfection are so much higher than this world’s standards of beauty, and when we are measuring by my Ruler, you are beautiful.”  And He whispered to me, “You have a beauty that far exceeds all the ‘pretty’ girls in the world — because your beauty comes from the glow of Christ in you.  That sparkle in your eyes exceeds everything else because it is Christ!  That glow can never be taken from you.  Exterior beauty fades, but this never will.”

  And that settled it for me.  Ever since that day, I have lost the sense of insecurity that used to paralyze me day by day.  My beauty is a radiance that comes from Christ.  It wells up and bubbles over in my words, movements and actions – not just in the surface of my face.

  • 5:58 pm
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