Wonderfully Made

Psalm 139:14

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

Recently, I had a heart wrenching talk with my ten year old daughter who suffers from mild ticks.  This means, for those who aren’t familiar, that she does small, usually unnoticeable, motions with her head, neck, or even her eyes, like blinking.  She cannot control these movements and they are hereditary.  I remember when I first became friends with my husband, he would blink his eyes several times quickly and one day I asked him about it.  He explained that it was a tick and he couldn’t help it.  His brother and other family members also suffer from these ticks, some more severe than others. 

Taylor’s ticks were sometimes very noticeable last school year and she encountered other students questioning her and many times making fun of her actions.  As you can imagine this destroyed me as her mother and I suddenly had the urge to beat up small children!  I knew this would have been frowned upon especially since I was an elementary school teacher!  God gave me the heart and patience to keep control but I did gain an understanding of why mama dogs bite! 

Our family did much research and found that there were things we could do to help control the ticks like her getting plenty of sleep, limiting caffeine intake, and keeping our daughter’s stress level low.  Another key is to NOT draw attention to the ticks, which only make them worsen.  Another issue we had to educate others on was trying to get her to stop the ticks, which is impossible and only escalated her ticks. 

Since our move, Taylor has not had a problem with them at school, but since Thanksgiving break and getting out of her regular routine, we have noticed the ticks bothering her this week.  Last night before she went to sleep, my daughter looked into my eyes and said, “Mommy, why did God let me has ticks?  They make me weird.”  She then went on to explain that a little girl had made fun of her at school that day and even mocked her tick.  It broke my heart.

I explained to Taylor that God didn’t make mistakes.  I explained that people born without legs, or sight, or without hearing ask that same questions.  I told her that each person God creates is special and that what people see as different or weird, God sees as an opportunity to set you apart from the crowd.  I shared with her a personal story of being made fun of when I was her age and how everyone has something different about them.  I also told her that I believed with all my heart that she had been called out from the crowd and she wasn’t “just like everyone else” because God had amazing plans for her life.  I’ll never forget her response.  She smiled and said, “Mommy, you really believe those things about me, don’t you?”  I answered with tears in my eyes, “Oh, yes my sweetheart, I sure do.” 

None of us are perfect.  Each of us have flaws the world see and calls attention to, but I continue to believe it is God’s way of setting you apart from others.  We long to belong and fit in only to learn as we draw closer to our Savior that all the while God is calling us out from the crowd to stand for Him so that people will notice that “something different” which only comes from following Him.