I was taken to Georgia baptist hospital, where I had some surgeries and my parents were told that they weren't sure I would survive. I remained there for 3 months. I had skin grafts done to repair some of the damage to the right side of my chest. The skin was taken from the inside of my thighs and used to help with healing. I used a wheelchair for getting around, when I was finally allowed out of my hospital room.
The road was long, but I had wonderful Christian parents to take care of me and many prayer warriors in my family, and so it was God's will that I survived.
What remained were scars on the top of my left arm and forearm and the entire underside of my right arm. There were also scars on the right side of my chest as well as the ones from my skin grafts on my inner thighs. There were scars on my face, but God was great to me again and the scaring there was very faint.
As time passed, and I healed completely I didn't think of my scars very often. I played outside with family and no one at church or in our family ever mentioned them to me. That all changed one day when they were brought to my attention in a cruel way.
I was four years old and it was my first day of Kindergarten. My twin sister and I had just gotten to school, and in no time a little boy saw my arms and began making fun of me. I was beyond devastated. I had never experienced anything like that, nor had I even entertained the thought of it happening.
I didn't tell the teacher or anyone. I just slipped off quietly, cried, and hid behind a big wooden easel that was in the area where we were to paint. I stayed hidden there all day long. My sister came and talked to me a few times when she could, but otherwise I was alone. I felt so ashamed. That little boy had changed my view of myself in that moment and there was nothing that could undo the damage he had done to my four year old self. He had also stolen my joy, and the carefree feeling that comes with being so little. I didn't understand at that time that I was a child of God,and that the scars didn't matter. I just thought that I had scars and they made me ugly and different.
The bullying continued... for example in second grade I was standing in line, in the lunchroom, and a little boy in my class (I can still remember his name) began to call me "bacon arms". I wanted the floor to swallow me up. When he became tired of it, he finished it up with "No one is ever going to marry you." I went home and cried and cried because in my heart I felt that he was right.
Third grade came and with it, no difference. A boy in my class that year began rubbing his ink pen back and forth on his desk top very fast to heat it up, and then sticking the pen to the scar on my left arm until it began to bleed. I said nothing. My sister noticed what he had done, punched him in the nose, and then he was the one bleeding. We all wound up in the office. Out of all of that, all I felt was humiliation and guilt. Guilt that it was all my fault for having the scars in the first place. I felt so bad that my sister was in trouble (Not at home), and the fact that everyone knew what he'd been doing to me was the humiliating factor. In my mind it just brought way to much attention to my scars.
High school came and I was dating age. I had a crush on what I considered the cutest guy ever to walk the face of the Earth. This was perfectly normal for my age, and all of my friends were talking to me about their crushes, but I never said a word. I knew no one would ever want to go out with me least of all the guy I had the crush on, so I just listened to them and kept my secret.
God was good to me and that very boy asked me out and we dated for quite awhile. I was in Heaven and couldn't believe he wanted to be with me of all people. I knew so many other girls that wanted to go out with him. He eventually broke up with me and I was heart broken, but thankful that God had given me that one season of happiness.
Against that second grade boys prediction, three years after my first boyfriend and I broke up I married a very handsome man and had 2 beautiful children.
All through the years I wore long sleeves as often as I could to avoid as many questions and comments about my arms as possible. I began a job as a substitute teacher when my son (my baby) was of school age, so as not to miss time with him. I broke out the cardigan sweaters to cover my arms and I began subbing at the elementary school he attended. It worked perfectly as far as being home when my children were home.
A permanent position came open after I had been working there for about 2 years. I applied and did not get the job. I was heart broken because the administration had been so good to me. They even let me choose, each day, which classroom I wanted out of the ones that were available for that day.
I left there really upset and drove right to the High school and gave them my card and my employee number. They called me the next morning and so it began. I was placed in a special education classroom and I loved it! The students were all so wonderful and so positive. They were a blessing in my life. A permanent position came open there in the Special Education Department and two of the administrators came to the classroom where I was working and offered me the job.
I accepted their offer. A few years went by, and one day one of my students came up to me while we were in the gym and he was crying. He said that he was being made fun of, and that he knew he was different and never going to have a girlfriend or anything like that. It broke my heart. I asked another teacher to watch my students and I went back to our classroom with him. I talked to him about how wrong he was and how wonderful he was.
The fact that he was saying the same thing about himself that my classmate in 2nd grade had said about me really resonated with me. The rest of the class came back from the gym and as they were being seated it dawned on me. God had brought me here to this room to these children because he was turning my storm into something good. I knew in that moment what I had to do.
I asked them all to listen to me, and I said that I had to talk to them about something very important. At that point I said "I'm going to share something with all of you that I have tried my best to hide for at least 30 years. I removed my cardigan sweater standing right in front of the class and I showed them my scars. I said I was burned really badly as a small child and I am telling you all this so that when you come to me and tell me that you are not feeling good about yourself for one reason or another and I tell you that I totally understand you will know that I mean what I say.
I told them about my being bullied and picked on and made fun of during my school years and about people coming up to me and saying things like "Oh my God what happened to your arms?". I told them that they were all beautifully and wonderfully made, and that they were blessings to me and to so many others because we were able to watch them shine and embrace life. I also told them that people who pick on other people are hurting and in return hurt others. Most of all I tried to express that they should love themselves as they are, and not waste years, like I had done, living in the shadow of myself.
They were listening so intently. I apologized for trying to hide my scars, and I told them that unless it was actually so cold in the room that I couldn't stand it, I wouldn't be covering up my arms anymore. I felt so free. It was wonderful. For the first time in my life I didn't care what anyone said.
You see, I knew in that very moment, that God had turned my storm into something good. The reason I didn't get the job at the elementary school had nothing at all to do with man. It was simply not the plan that God had for my life. God knew that I belonged at that high school with those special need students. He knew that I would not only love and care for them like they were my own, but I would understand their pain, protect them, and show them that they are going to be okay because they are perfect in their own right.
I thank you God for the blessing of working with these children for so many years. I praise you for knowing where I belonged, and for the healing that placing me there gave me. Those students enriched my life in so many ways. Far to many to list. I just pray that having me in their lives touched them in a way they will always remember.
God is amazing.....Trust me, I know...
Romans 8:28 King James Version (KJV)
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
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