A Comment Worth Reading

I recently received a comment on my blog from a person from Brisbane, Australia. I thought it was good enough to be its own post rather than to remain hidden in the comments section of a previous post, so I am posting it here for your edifcation:

Praise God for the way He leads us by His Spirit into truth as we read His Word. :) I happened on your blog a couple of days ago while googling for a photo of Ken Tada - my husband is reading Joni's memoirs (as I type!) and wanted to see a picture of him. I've been thoroughly enjoying your (and your mum's) writing, and your theological and personal reflections. Thanks so much for sharing them for the edification of your brothers and sisters around the world!I have recently read an article in 'The Briefing' about 'God and the Disabled', by Peter Avery. May I type out a brief section for you? It supports and expands on your realisation..."6. Jesus is the perfect priest who brings us salvation:But sin's hold on God's creatures can only be broken by a perfect priest who offers the perfect sacrifice. The passage I quoted earlier in Leviticus 21[:17-20] isn't mainly about the connection between disabilities and sin; it's about preventing the disabled sons of Aaron from serving as priests in the tabernacle / temple. Talk about discrimination! The Equal Opportunity Commission would have had a field day! But who is the one doing the discriminating? In vs 16, it is clear it's the Lord. It's bad enough that we live in a world where people are discriminated against all the time; why does God do it here in the Bible?The answer is in vs 23: '...he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the LORD who sanctifies them'. God discriminated against the disabled sons of Aaron so that our sins could be forgiven. God is holy and we are not. He cannot tolerate imperfection because of his holiness. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, God was teaching his people that we can only approach him through a perfect priest who offers a perfect sacrifice. That perfect priest could only be Jesus. So the Old Testament priests could not have any physical blemishes as they were fore-shadowing Jesus, the perfect priest. The writer of Hebrews says of him,
For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. (Heb 7:26-28)As the father of a disabled daughter, you can probably understand my dislike of discrimination. But I rejoice in and am glad about the fact that God discriminated against the disabled so that our sins could be forgiven and we could come into a relationship with him." taken from Peter Avery, 'Then shall the lamb leap like a deer: God and the disabled', The Briefing Feb 2007, Issue 341, pg 15-18So no, God's 'discrimination' against blemished animals and priests wasn't in an 'absolutist' sense, but because they were the fore-shadowing (or 'type') of the perfect lamb-sacrifice -and- perfect High Priest to come - our Lord Jesus. As always, there was purposefulness and wisdom to His actions that we creatures clamour sometimes to understand, but how cool when it all clicks, and we see His glory so much more.thanks again for your great encouragement, kn. (Brisbane, Australia) Publish this comment. Reject this comment. ",1]
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For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. (Heb 7:26-28)As the father of a disabled daughter, you can probably understand my dislike of discrimination. But I rejoice in and am glad about the fact that God discriminated against the disabled so that our sins could be forgiven and we could come into a relationship with him."taken from Peter Avery, 'Then shall the lamb leap like a deer: God and the disabled', The Briefing Feb 2007, Issue 341, pg 15-18So no, God's 'discrimination' against blemished animals and priests wasn't in an 'absolutist' sense, but because they were the fore-shadowing (or 'type') of the perfect lamb-sacrifice -and- perfect High Priest to come - our Lord Jesus. As always, there was purposefulness and wisdom to His actions that we creatures clamour sometimes to understand, but how cool when it all clicks, and we see His glory so much more.thanks again for your great encouragement, kn. (Brisbane, Australia)

Distorted Beauty

The gals over at the Girl Talk blog recently posted about the Dove self-esteem campaign.

There is a very interesting video linked to their post also that shows how any ordinary woman can be transformed by makeup and computer imaging and the standard that we women are being expected to live up to is not even real to begin with.

The deeper our culture dives into impossible standards of beauty, the easier my job gets. It used to be only those of us with deformed faces were considered ugly, now it seems, every woman in the world is.

Deformed Face Myths

I haven't posted in a while. I just moved 2200 miles away, am sort of in the boonies (beautiful boonies), and it took me a while to get set up with an internet connection, etc.

So what has lured me out of my silence? Strange thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. I was talking to a woman on the phone and she was telling me about her experiences as a youth group leader and how twenty years later, one girl came back, all grown up, and admitted that the night this woman drove her home, she was on her way to commit suicide. She went on to say that the woman's interest and involvement in her life made her feel loved and thus spared her life. Very touching story.

But what was strange was the woman I was speaking to said she was so alarmed to learn about this because, "the girl was so pretty." And then went on to say, "I saw nothing in her life worthy of suicide. It's not like she had a deformed face or anything."

This theme was reiterated just yesterday when I was online doing a web search and stumbled across an apologetics site where a man very hostile to the gospel found the golden argument that has silenced all of those irritating "witnesses" in his life. The argument was, "If God is a loving God, how come people like Julianna Whetmore are born?"

What's even more puzzling than his question is the fact that many born again Christians piped up in Christ's defense to leave comments on this man's blog -- and yet even the Christians handed it to the skeptic that they also had no idea why a loving God would allow such "tragedies."

Folks, I don't know how to express my surprise. Since when is a deformed face the worse possible scenario a person can conjure up in their heads? And why is it that we assume all such unfortunates do nothing but sit around all day thinking of ways to end their own lives?

It is a myth. A lie.

The old adage is, "Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes." If you walked a mile in my shoes, you'd realize that a deformed face isn't so bad. It's no worse than anything else anyone has to deal with. Life has ups and downs. Do I have days when I wish there was more surgery and more to do to fix my face? Sure, but to tell you the truth, my insecure moments are not any more intense or frequent than any other woman or girl I have ever talked to who don't have deformities.

If my face was perfect, I'd wish I was thinner, or I wouldn't like something about the way I looked. I have yet to meet a woman who says she is 100% content with her physical appearance.

Folks, a deformed face ain't so bad. Compared to some of the horrible trials my friends are going through right now, I often think I am the luckiest person in the world, because I really have a pretty nice life. No complaints. Life is good.

If God is loving, why did he deform my face? I don't know -- maybe because with a normal face I would have been robbed of the thousands and thousands of blessings that I have received BECAUSE of my deformities. It seems odd, but usually our greatest trial is what most molds and shapes us. It gives us character, backbone, courage, wisdom, discernment, and friendships that are not shallow.

I often like to imagine that the crown of thorns probably did a number on Christ's forhead. I'm sure his face was a lot more deformed at that point than mine will ever be - and it was because of the "joy set before him" that he endured it. So.....so can I.

First Face Transplant

The BBC is reporting the first face transplant has occured in France.


Excerpt from the article:
The woman had lost her nose, lips and chin after being savaged by a dog. In the controversial operation, tissues, muscles, arteries and veins were taken from a brain-dead donor and attached to the patient's lower face. Doctors stress the woman will not look like her donor, but nor will she look like she did before the attack - instead she will have a "hybrid" face.


Here is CNN's report

Here is MSNBC's report
(Includes some drawings)

Here is New Scientist's report

Here is Yahoo News' report
(Discusses ethical concerns of procedure)

Face Transplants

While the concept is as old as Rod Serling, it seems that sci-fi has now reached the labratories. The technology has not been perfected, but scientists and doctors are experimenting with face transplants. (It all seems just a bit creepy to me).

Here is an excerpt from the full article.

A team of doctors at the University of Louisville in Kentucky is moving forward with a plan to attempt the world’s first face transplant. They have applied for permission from the University’s research ethics committee to remove a face from a cadaver and transfer it to a live volunteer willing to go through with the surgery. If approved, the operation could take place before the end of this year.

There are apparently many volunteers willing to undergo a face transplant. While some people who have endured facial disfigurement learn to adjust, others do not. They would gladly take the risks involved in such a surgery for a chance to regain the normalcy that, in our appearance-conscious society where people undergo multiple surgeries just to look younger, is difficult to achieve with a severely deformed face.

The problem is that there are a number of very real and serious risks confronting the first subject. For example, the drugs used to prevent rejection by the body may fail, leaving the recipient with the nightmare of the transplant being rejected and, with death likely to quickly follow, no other options. In addition, the drugs involved are so toxic that cancer, kidney failure and other problems are likely to eventually occur, even if the initial surgery is successful.

Even more challenging is the problem of adjusting to a new face. While those with severe facial deformities might hope for any alternative, a transplanted face that does not work right, looks strange or reminds people of someone who is dead, would pose very difficult challenges to anyone who receives it.

Terukuni Fujii

Here is a very personal story from the Taipei Times archives that I thought was very insightful. Though I was sometimes teased, I certainly never experienced any persecution or cultural ostracism to this level.

It is the story of a Japanese man named Terukuni Fujii who developed a mark of some sort on his face when he was two years old that developed into benign tumor that grew to deform his face. He seems to have overcome all the odds as I see he is currently a professor of Science of Nursing at a university.

Fujji is now 46 years old. There is a small photo of him included in the article.

Here is a quote from Fujii from the article:

With the release of his autobiography, entitled Face of Destiny, last October, Fujii became a torch bearer for 1 million people in Japan with deformed faces.

"Many of those people tend to cloister themselves at home as others look daggers at them," Fujii said in a recent interview.

"I urge those people to go out and tell others `I suffer, my heart aches,'" from the way they are treated, said Fujii, who has frequently been spat at in the street.

"I have been saying the same thing for two decades ... but there are finally moves to break down the invisible wall" between the handicapped and others, he said.

The Spotless Lamb

I stumbled across Leviticus 4:32 this evening and it triggered an old, forgotten memory from my youth. The verse says, “If he brings a lamb as his sin offering, he is to bring a female without defect.”

At a very young age, I came across this passage (or one similar to it) and was very hurt, thinking that God was displeased with my deformities. Having a deformed face, I believed that maybe I wouldn’t be allowed into Heaven because God only approved of physical perfection. My heart sank as I realized that the God who had been eavesdropping on all of my prayers was just as shallow and critical of me as the strangers who stared at me in the grocery store. Then I wondered why God would even create me with deformities if he meant to condemn me because of them. Fortunately, I didn’t let my fears go unspoken for too long and I eventually talked to my mom about it. Truthfully, I don’t remember what she told me, but being as young as I was, I was easily comforted, even though the passage continued to perplex me. Yes, the passage didn’t mean that God didn’t love me, but it still didn’t answer the burning question.

Knowing what a verse doesn’t mean is a far cry from knowing what it does mean. I’ve thought about all of this through the years and have asked a few people about it, but still haven’t had many good explanations. But, I think something struck me tonight (it seems so obvious now)!

My answer here is in no way exhaustive, but just a few fresh, random thoughts.

I see now that my confusion as a child stemmed from a common problem – interpreting Scripture with the assumption that a verse is mainly something important that God has to say about me, rather than assuming it has something to say to me…about God.

The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament era was an analogous system set up to foreshadow Jesus Christ. The blood of lambs, sacrificed repeatedly, temporarily took away sin and this system paved a road of tradition and familiarity so that when the Lamb of God came into the world he would be recognized as the final sacrifice.

If I were to be superimposed into the Leviticus passage, I would not be playing the part of the lamb. I would be the man who had sinned. So, it is an unparallel analogy to say that God did not want deformed animals to be used as a sacrifice so that means he doesn’t value deformed human beings.

In order to be a perfect shadow of Christ, the lambs had to be spotless because the Lamb of God that would come to take away the sin of the world would be. If the traditions had allowed for any old filthy, tattered, sickly animal to atone for sin, then Christ’s deity, purity, sinlessness, and perfection could not be assumed. If his purity could not be assumed, he could not be recognized as the Son of God. If he was not the Son of God, his sacrifice would have been just as temporal as the sheep’s and goat’s. But because the Levitical law was explicit - that only perfect, unblemished lambs could be offered, it gives us the confidence that Jesus Christ was not a mere scapegoat, but indeed, the Spotless Lamb who came to take away the sin of the world.

And so I now finally realize that this passage has nothing to do with me and my imperfections at all, but everything to do with Christ and his perfections.

Carolyn

On Thursday, Oprah had a woman on her show named Carolyn. The media has dubbed her "The Woman Without a Face" but having similar things said about me, I choose to call her by her name, Carolyn.

Carolyn was shot at point-blank range in the face by an enraged boyfriend a year and a half ago. Her story will air on the Discovery Health Channel on a program entitled, "Plastic Surgery: Before and After." For more program information, check out their website at: www.discovery.com/health.

For more information on Carolyn and her dramatic and inspiring ordeal, go to Oprah's website: http://www2.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200505/tows_past_20050526.jhtml

To view a slideshow click here: http://www2.oprah.com/tows/slide/200505/20050526/slide_20050526_101.jhtml

Are Disabled People Unhappy?

This article really intrigued me because all of my early surgeries were done at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia in the 1970s.

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who worked for years with severely deformed infants as a pediatric surgeon at Philadelphia's Children's Hospital, commented that...
It has been my constant experience that disability and unhappiness do not necessarily go together. He continues: Some of the most unhappy children whom I have known have all of their physical and mental faculties, and on the other hand some of the happiest youngsters have borne burdens which I myself would find very difficult to bear. Our obligation in such circumstances is to find alternatives for the problems our patients face. I don't consider death an acceptable alternative. With our technology and creativity, we are merely at the beginning of what we can do educationally and in the field of leisure activities for such youngsters. And who knows what happiness is for another person?

To read the entire article, click here.

Be Not Afraid

Be Not Afraid is an online outreach to parents who have received a poor or difficult prenatal diagnosis. The family stories, articles, and links within this site are presented as a resource for those who may have been asked to choose between terminating a pregnancy or continuing on despite the diagnosis. The benotafraid.net families faced the same decision and chose not to terminate. By sharing our experiences, we hope to offer encouragement to those who may be afraid to continue on.

To read more visit: www.benotafraid.net

The Last Shall Be First

John 20:27, "Then Jesus said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.'"

Here is Jesus, raised from the dead, in his glorified body. We know that this new body is supernatural and superhuman, because just one verse before it says, "...though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them..." And yet, even in his glorified state, he instructs Thomas, "see my hands." The scars left from the nails and the spear remained in his glorified state.

This verse has helped me more than any other with regard to not only accepting, but coming to joyfully treasure the scars on my face. Christ himself, who had the power to conquer death and raise himself from the grave and walk through locked doors, kept his scars.

Another passage that has always intrigued me is Ezekiel 10. This is the eerie "whirling wheels" passage where the glory of God departs from the temple. The cherubim is very archaically described. It almost sounds...this is daring, I know...it almost sounds like the angels are confined to wheelchairs! Listen to this description from verses 9-13:

I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim; the wheels sparkled like chrysolite. As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike; each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced; the wheels did not turn about as the cherubim went. The cherubim went in whatever direction the head faced, without turning as they went. Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels. I heard the wheels being called "the whirling wheels."

Angels confined to wheels? A Savior with scars?

I am sitting here racking my brains to come up with some sort of nice pat ending - some sort of conclusion to make sense of this, and I'm drawing a total blank. All I can really say is, I think when we get to Heaven we will all be very, very surprised by God's definition of "beautiful."