A Matter of Faith...

By Carol Round

Take Me as I Am
”Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Hebrews 10:14 (NIV)

“LOOKING FOR ANGEL IN DISGUISE”

Although it has been more than two months since this headline on a display ad caught my eye in a major metropolitan newspaper, I still remember the exact words. Elona Harris had placed the 3 x 4 inch ad to locate a young child whom she had encountered at a cosmetics store on Christmas Eve in Tulsa. The girl, with her long blonde hair, captured Harris’ attention for two reasons: her beautiful smile and her disfigured face.

Harris, along with her daughter, was captivated by the youngster’s lopsided smile and her inner radiance. As the days passed, Harris could not forget the little girl. She wanted to help. Her desire to find a medical treatment option for the child led Harris to seek her identity through the newspaper. The ad worked.

After meeting with the family of the 3-year-old, Harris set up a fund in Carleigh Yarrington’s name to assist with medical expenses. Since the follow-up story ran in the newspaper in early January, $54,000 has been raised toward the treatment options that may change the child’s life.

Born with a severe benign tumor that contorts the right side of her face, Carleigh is too young to be aware of how some in our society will react to her facial deformity as she grows up. Harris knows, however, because she has had first-hand experience with a granddaughter who was born with a cleft palate.

Carleigh’s parents don’t want her to have to deal with the facial abnormality for the rest of her life. Strangers have already begun to make comments or ask questions when they see her in public. Because people stare, Carleigh’s mother, Miranda, now hands out information about her daughter’s condition, known as hemangioma.

For Harris, it wasn’t curiosity that attracted her to young Carleigh. It was a desire to help that made her reach out to a young girl whom God had placed in her path.

God places people in our path each day. Although He asks us to accept others as He accepts us, we sometimes have a hard time with this. I know I have.

How can we approach God and ask Him to “take me as I am,” when we cannot do the same for others? When I accepted Christ as my Savior, all things became brand new. I began not only to accept my own faults and weaknesses—my disfigurements—but I was better able to accept the same in others. However, I have to ask Him daily to let me see others through His eyes.

As children of God, we should ask to be made perfect through Him. Young children really have no problem with that. They are born in innocence but corrupted by society’s standards of perfection.

When we realize that perfection exists only in the eyes of our Beholder, we can begin to serve Him by helping those whom He places in our path.

A collection of Carol Round’s most popular faith-based columns is now available in book form. For more information, readers can reach her at carolaround@yahoo.com.