Wondering Why

If you are new to me, you may not have a firm grasp on my core values.  Well, sometimes I feel like that makes two of us.

Although my family can be confusing for oh-so-many reasons I won't get into here, one could take a look at my parents and some of the branches on the tree and assume I'd been groomed to be a right-wing, Wonder-bread-eating, Christian housewife.  Except for the Wonder-bread-eating part, maybe all of that isn't so far from the truth.  When I look at myself, though, I don't really know who or what I am.  

I hate politics.

I understand why all of you politicophiles care so much that you will go for blood.  If that part of me exists, I haven't met her yet.  She's probably also the part of me that handles balancing the checkbook.  Before you think I hate you because you voted for Obama, are pro-choice, or live a lifestyle more colorful than my own (and who doesn't, really?!), get a grip on yourselves.  Life is too short for all of that, and that's not the way I operate.

I love Jesus.  

You may not, and sometimes I feel ya, dawg.  Life can be full of, for lack of a better word, crap.  We tend to want to blame that on someone or something.  God is often the scapegoat.  Sometimes the bad a person has to endure is truly horrifying and they stop believing in the Divine altogether.  Or, many just don't believe because they have reasoned away a Creator with logic.  Wherever you may be in your religious beliefs is your business, and I am not writing to begin a debate or change your mind..... just thinking about some things....

Last weekend I came across a photo album that's spent the last decade hidden away in the drawer of one of my old dressers at my mom's house.  I was specifically on the hunt for some missing pictures of my dearly departed horse, which I successfully found, along with a ton of pictures from my childhood.  

I hate looking at my baby pictures, nearly as much as my mother LOVES looking at them.  A severe reaction to the DPT vaccination as an infant caused my lower lip and cheeks to swell up like a balloon.  The doctors called it hemangioma, which, in basic medical terms, means tumor of the blood vessels.  

Throughout my childhood, Mom was always super-paranoid I'd cut my lip and bleed to death.  Doctors urged her not to introduce anything to my bloodstream (piercings, tattoos, etc.) for fear I'd be infected and there'd be no way to save me.  When I mentioned getting a tattoo a couple months ago, I saw the color blanch from her skin and I didn't have to guess why.  

Socially, my life with hemangioma has been awkward.  As a teenager, boys never asked me out.  Little kids stare.  All the time.  The bolder of them will point-blank ask me if I've been burned.  I mostly gave up caring long ago.  The plastic surgeon who saw me as a small child mentioned that he could do laser surgery to remove some scarring if I'd like to.  I mentioned it to my mother one time, and she seemed almost offended by the idea, like I would be erasing a miracle.

Flipping through the photos in the picture album, my mom pointed out my hospital picture, one I'd never seen before.

"See there, you looked like a normal baby before that shot."  She commented.

A lump formed in my throat.  I did look normal.  My lower lip was small, my cheeks were smooth.  I was your ordinary, run-of-the-mill newborn, and that made me jealous and upset.

It's surprising how angry I felt with God at that moment.  My problems are small, I know they are, and He is faithful in many other ways...  But why did that have to happen to me?  I know my knowledge is simple and finite, but I really wish I had an answer for this one.  Have you ever felt the same?