1 PETER 1:6
Growing up, I was made fun of a lot. To put it bluntly, I didn’t have a profile. My face went straight back below my nose. When I was born, I didn’t have a roof in the top of my mouth and my jaw had stopped growing before I was born. On top of that, I was very short. After three surgeries on my mouth, I had a roof, but my jaw was still set back. I took growth hormone shots for two years and finally made it to five feet tall. During school, I’d walk through the halls and people would point and talk about my face. It devastated my self-esteem. The one bright spot was that I had a great orthodontist throughout this whole process. He tried to fix my mouth without doing surgery by putting two bars in my mouth that ran from the top back teeth to the bottom front teeth, plus braces. My mouth was full of metal. It helped but didn’t fix my problem. Finally, when I was fifteen, I had the surgery, and it ended up taking nine and a half hours! I am now completely healed and people don’t make fun of me anymore. But it hurts when I think about how I didn’t have many friends because of how my face looked. I remember coming home after school and talking to God about everything. Sometimes He was the only real friend that I had. I still don’t know why God put me in this situation, but I know that it has made me who I am today. I have definitely learned that God will give me nothing I can’t handle with His help.
Sara York, 16, Antioch High School, Antioch, TN
Lord, I don’t understand why I have to endure some
of the things I do. But I want to learn to trust in
Your wisdom, even when I can’t understand it.