Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday April 25, 2007

Today (Monday) I read an old story that is making the rounds yet again. I'm sure you have heard some variation, but lessons in the story are timeless.

A teacher while watching the children during recess on the playground noticed little Johnny making faces at the 2nd grade girls. Mrs. Teacher/Psychologist rushed to the rescue of the dear girls and confronted little Johnny with great advice stating; "Johnny, when I was a child, (teachers were never kids) my parents told me that I should never make an ugly face, because it might freeze and I would always look like that face." Johnny came right back with; "Well, you can't say you weren't told."

I don't think making ugly faces will freeze your face into that image in your own mind, but it very well could freeze you into a mold formed by others as a person with an ugly personality, a person who is mean, ignorant and perhaps a "little touched in the head." President Lincoln posited that after we reach adult status we are pretty much responsible for our facial expressions.

By the time you have just a tad of gray in the hair you will have met, maybe have been friends with someone who at first meeting appeared beautiful or in the case of a man, handsome. After getting to know them you saw beyond the physical attraction and into the soul of the person and made a determination that this person is in fact "Ugly on the inside." Ugly on the inside is far worse that being ugly at first glance.

Years ago Judge Braude told of a man who so loved his wife that he was the talk of the clubs and other business groups in the small town where he and his beloved wife lived out the days of their earthly sojourn. The judge in weaving one of his gripping stories pointed out that the wife had never been lumped with the town beauties, but was as he said, "So ugly it looked as though her eyebrows had caught fire and the fire had been put out with an axe." Yet her husband and children loved her dearly. God, through His internal work made her beautiful in their sight. And the judge added, beautiful in the sight of all who knew her.

I recall a girl from school days in the small farming community where I at least started to grow to maturity. (The wife of my youth insists that for me, this journey is still in its infancy). A girl, stunning in her physical beauty was the most obnoxious child, (I used other names in those days) and hardly anyone liked her. I saw her a few years ago at a funeral I was conducting. In the course of milling around I noticed that she was comparatively "dowdy" to her former poise and beauty. Yet it was obvious that something had happened and she actually radiated a near mystical beauty. I commented that she seemed a different person from the girl I remembered in elementary school and she commented that when Christ came into her life she began to grow up.

As I flew home I thought, "I wonder how many people I have frozen into their elementary school image in my mind?" I know it has to be too many, for we all should outgrow some things from childhood.

Often religion puts far too much emphasis on the outside, while Jesus is concerned with the inside, the seat of true beauty.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit

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