Klarabelle Candy

I need to stop lying to myself.

I'm not particularly beautiful. Sometimes I look pretty, but most of the time I just look alright. I have potential, but not as much potential as some others because I'm not 'normal' - I have a disability that could be much worse - I should be thankful for it, but instead I feel like it's always holding me back from being who I was really meant to be. A surgery saved my life, and I can only think about how different it makes me from everyone else. People ask me about the scar on my forehead or the scar on the back of my arm (good thing they can't see the 10 inch scar on my arm! That would really start questions!), and I freeze up and can't talk about it I just want to go home, close the door, turn on my music, and belt out Elphaba's part in Defying Gravity until I feel better.

^ Those are the lies.

Someday I'll accept the fact that although I am not as beautiful as some girls, I still look nice sometimes. Someday I'll accept that even though I have scars and disabilities, I'm still made in God's image and that my value should come from that fact, not from whether I have perfect skin or nice hips. Someday I'll accept the fact that the many surgeries kept me alive, and that I do have potential as a human being, even if I'm not a 'normal' human being like 'everyone' else. Someday I'll be able to tell people that the scar on my arm is from childhood cancer, in which a tumor was removed from my arm and replaced with an metal rod in a limb-sparing surgery. Someday I'll be able to tell them that the small scar that is occasionally visible on the back of my arm is from the surgery where they tried to lengthen the rod to make my arm a bit longer (it didn't exactly work). And someday I'll realize that it could've been much worse, that I could've lost my arm or even died. And someday I'll see it all as a miracle instead of a disability. That's the way I used to think of it, before I realized how different it made me and before I realized how much it would change my future. Someday I'll return to that childlike belief, a belief that is thankful for life and a belief that doesn't care about lipstick, makeup, and boys or wonder what kind of man would marry a girl who can hardly to housework.

Someday I'll stop letting myself believe the lies, and someday I'll believe the truth. This is the truth: "For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." {1 Samuel 16:7, KJV}. But you see, that's just it. The problem is not that my right arm is several inches shorter than my other, and that it has limited functions that send me into panic mode when someone asks me to do something I physically cannot do. That's not the problem. The problem is my heart, my heart that is so focused on me that it can't see Jesus. That it can't see a new heaven and a new earth where God will wipe away our tears and where we will be in perfect fellowship with Him, when everything that has happened on earth will be cause of praise to God and not a cause for sadness. When the many miracles that He has done in my life will cause me to praise Him and love Him even more.

That's the truth. But right now, I can't see past the lies.