Hope in the midst of hopelessness

“Do not put your faith in hope, for it has abandoned this place.”
-Eomund, The Return of the King

So a good friend of mine was talking recently about hope in hopelessness and that triggered something inside of me. I guess because I feel like there was a long season of hopelessness that I faced in my life. Many around me, some who knew me and some just in passing openly expressed their pity for me and their judgment that there was no hope great enough in the world for my physical birth defects. Time and again this sense of hopelessness that others expressed concern for me centered around what they believed to be a fact. They believed I would never find a woman in this world who could accept me and love me for who I was because of how I looked. I struggled on and off with this hopeless thinking. I cried myself to sleep countless nights over how I looked and how unfair it was and how I never would find someone of the fairer sex who would accept me. I pleaded night after night that I be healed of this defect and have a “normal” face and ear like most of the rest of the population. My mom and my older sister always were supportive and encouraging to me. They often called me handsome. At the time I half believed them and half thought they did it out of obligation since we were family. Now that I’m older and wiser, I know that they truly meant what they had said.

A good friend of my wife and I was talking with my wife one day. He is still single and in his 40’s and struggles with hoping for the right woman to come along who will love him and accept him for who he is. He has an injury to his arm, an indentation and scar tissue from a burn injury, I think. It’s about the size of a half of a baseball. Anyway, he was stating how he didn’t think there were any women out their who could accept him because of this imperfection. My wife responded in a positive fashion stating that there was a woman out there. She continued by stating something to the effect of “Look at me, I married James.” He replied with a remark stating that if I had had the defects that mar my face before she and I were married that she certainly could not have been willing to marry me. You see, he thought the imperfections on my face and ear were the result of some sort of accident or burn injury that had occurred after she and I were married. She quickly defended her previous statement of encouragement to him as she explained that I have been this way since birth and she had accepted me just as I am from the very beginning of our courtship.

What an amazing woman! My lovely wife who took on a man with only half a handsome face. She was willing to stop and take a long enough look and see beyond the visible. This is the same woman who had faith that our children would come out fine and not carry the physical deformities that riddled my face while I feared for the worse. Even though my doctors reassured me that my kids would also come out fine. There was always that nagging fear in the back of my mind. My kids did come out just fine. Neither of them was “graced” with my physical trait. I say that with mixed emotions. I would NEVER wish my condition upon anyone else, and yet I cherish nearly every moment of the life that I have lived as a result of it. The only moments I don’t cherish are the ones where I made bad choices. The rest has made me into the person who I am today. I have accomplished much in my life and plan to continue down that road. I have touched countless lives, some of which I have not even had the pleasure of meeting. Do I still desire to have a “normal” face? Yep. But as I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, 99% of the time, I forget that I look any different than the people around me. I just don’t think about it that much anymore. (A little secret for those of you who are like me…people see you as you SEE yourself, they accept you as you ACCEPT yourself). Live as normal a life as you can. Fight the insecurity that is prevalent with this condition as you are growing up. It is incredibly hard and I suffered that insecurity for years. But at some point, my identity no longer hinged upon my physical deformities, it was based upon who I was. I feel so blessed to have the two beautiful children that I do. I feel so blessed that they both love me. They adore their Daddy. They see past the skin. They know my heart.

The title of this blog, that’s my challenge to everyone who reads this, don’t give up hope. When it feels like there is no hope, it may just be right around the corner, or it may be in the next chapter. Or maybe it’s just been misdirected. If you feel like you have no hope, contact me and I will stand with you in the midst of the storm until it passes. Sometimes things don’t always work out the way we wanted them to, but in my own life, I am a fighter, and I’m willing to fight long and hard for what’s worth saving.
Have a great day!
James