Meredith Arnold is a very lucky girl considering her circumstances. She was born cocaine addicted and with a severe facial cleft. She became a ward of the state until being taken into custody by Michael and Camille Geraldi, two physicians who operate a home for children with severe physical disabilities. Meredith has undergone several surgeries to repair her face, and now hopes to look "pretty" by removing the facial scar tissue."
at first, when the episode started there was something that made me want to change the channel. it was my vanity. my shallowness. this little girl had a story to tell, and i wasn't going to watch it because she wasn't enjoyable to look at? i felt really shameful, because i knew the reason why i didn't want to watch. so i just continued to watch, slowly being drawn into the program - until eventually, i didn't want to watch anything else except Meredith on TV, and i felt my heart break.
probably 5 minutes into the program i started to really tear up, and that pretty much continued for the next half hour. at first, i cried for her because her birth mother had just left her there when she was born due to her birth defects. i cried because when she was born she was addicted to crack - meaning when she was in her mom's tummy her mom did crack throughout her pregnancy. i cried for her adoptive parents, because they loved her so much that it hurt them to see her in so much pain. i cried for her, because of the pain she had to endure from all her reconstructive surgery - she was after all, only 9 years old. i cried because of the world's view of beauty, and how this little girl desperately wanted to meet those standards. there was a shot of her parents tucking her into bed the night before her surgery (that was shown on the episode) and by her bed there was a whole collage of magazine cut outs of models. this is what she saw every single day before she went to bed. but after the surgery i cried because i was so happy for her. throughout the show, as the audience was given more insight into Meredith and her lifestyle (and just her in general) i started to see her in the way that God saw her. a beautiful child, even with all the complications in her physical appearance. finally, after her surgery (and after 9 years of her life), she got to be "beautiful" outside as well as in. she wasn't beautiful by the standards of the world, but she was in the eyes of her parents, and of herself. she physically saw herself in the way that God saw her all the her life.
i was shameful because at first i didn't even want to watch the show - because i had only the world's view of beauty in my mind. i didn't want to watch the show because she wasn't the greatest to look at. i never thought of myself as being vain before - but today i realized that honestly, it's an area that i need to fix, because obviously i am more vain than i thought. God has taught me something today, and it's only around noon. :)
what did He teach me? i learned today through watching Meredith's story that i need to look at the world, and see not what the world sees, but see things from a different perspective. i need to look at the world and see things at a deeper level. God doesn't look at people and separate the beautiful from the ugly. in fact, through God's perspective, no one is ugly. God made each and everyone one of us. He created our "inmost being". He created ALL of us to be "wonderfully and beautifully made", but sometimes, i'm so wrapped up in the ways of this world that i forget that.
all of us are creations of God - whether we realize it or not. funny how God can use a 9 year old's story on the TLC to remind me of such an important lesson. thanks Lord. :)
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