24 September 2012

for when you feel unlovely

"I stand by a bed where a  young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of her facial nerve,the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh, I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek I had to cut the little nerve.
   Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks.
    "Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks.
     "Yes," I say, "it will. It is because the nerve was cut.'
    She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles.
     "I like it." he says, "It is kind of cute."
   All at once I know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."

-From Richard Selzer, M.D's book Mortal Lessons. Excerpt in Brennan Manning's book  The Ragamuffin Gospel


That story has resonated with me.

Our God,

He is like that- showing, even in our unloveliness that we are still lovely to Him.

Oh, the foolishness of grace.

I am so grateful for it.

Love:)


R

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