Encouragement

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JoAnn’s Secret
© 2008

by

Stephen A. Peterson


JoAnn Dyer, 15, had a face full of blackheads and acne. It was for this reason she turned down birthday party invitations, going to her high school’s sporting events and even to attend certain church related functions. JoAnn was so afraid and embarrassed about her skin deformities that she began to think of herself as an ugly, distorted person. She believed other people and friends thought of her as just a big “ZIT”. In reality, JoAnn’s friends and those who met her all agreed that she was a really nice person who just happened to have a few acne pimples—quite normal for a young teenage girl.

Concerned JoAnn’s mother had the church’s youth minister drop by the Dyer home to talk to her anxious daughter. At 2:00 PM on a Saturday afternoon, the youth minister along with two other teens with more severe cases of acne came along just to talk to JoAnn. Within 40 minutes JoAnn came to learn just how loved and respected she was by her friends, church community and secret admirers.

When the laughter, sharing and prayer were over, JoAnn concluded the only good thing about her acne is that they are helping her understand what Jesus meant when He said she should love others as she love herself. Through her minister and friends, she learned she loved herself enough to know that her acne does not make unattractive. They are, instead, something unattractive that happened to her. And because of her acne, she now found herself looking differently at people with other defects. JoAnn came to understand and to see people who, like herself, are made in the image and likeness of God, except for a few flaws that really do not matter. They only matter when we think we have to put on the mask of perfection—a false mask.

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