Ahoy Mateys

It's funny the things one remembers from childhood ... some good, some not. One of the events from my childhood that I recall vividly began as something good, but it certainly did not end well. My sister had taken me and my niece to play Goony Golf ... my Chattanooga readers will certainly remember Goony Golf on Dayton Boulevard ... a miniature golf course with all kinds of crazy characters and structures watching over each hole. We were almost finished playing when for some reason still unknown to me, I stepped directly behind my sister as she was about to hit her golf ball. Again for some reason still unknown to me, my sister swung her club back as if she were about to launch the ball into space. And she connected alright ... she connected her golf club with my mouth, more specifically with my two front teeth. I'll spare you the gory details of the mayhem that rapidly ensued, but it was a full two years before my permanent teeth finally descended to fill the gap left by my missing two upper front baby teeth that my sister ... well ... that my sister managed to disintegrate with her superpowered Goony Golf swing.

This afternoon, I was chatting with my boss on the phone and we began talking about eye styes ... I know, what a topic to be discussing. Donna shared with me that she had styes quite often when she was young, and she talked about how unattractive her eye would become when one of the dreaded styes would form. I was completely empathizing with her until she made the following statement ... "I had a teacher who got tired of looking at the styes on my eyes and he made me wear an eye patch that he made from green construction paper and a string." I don't know why, but the thought of my boss as a little girl sitting in class wearing an eye patch made from green construction paper looking like a leprechaun pirate cracked me up ... to the point that I laughed out loud. OK ... I'll admit it ... I laughed so hard that I snorted. Thankfully, Donna has a great sense of humor and laughed with me ... whew.

Donna went on to talk about how humiliated she felt when she had to wear the eye patch, and her words made me recall those two years when I had no front teeth. My teachers would tell me not to smile in class pictures because of my missing teeth. Other kids teased me and called me snaggletooth. It was humiliating and embarrassing, and like the styes on Donna's eyes, I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't make my permanent teeth appear any faster, and Donna couldn't make her styes heal any quicker.

As I readied myself to leave work this evening, I found myself thinking about how much I was teased when I was young ... about how many times I felt humiliated and alone. It would have been easy to allow those years from my youth to define me as an adult ... sometimes it's hard to forget the stinging words or actions of others, to forgive, to move forward and leave the past behind. Climbing into my steaming hot car and flipping on the air conditioning, I leaned my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. I felt the gentle arms of my Lord wrap around me ... I felt His presence reassuring me that I am His ... I felt His peace settle over my heart. He loves me all the time ... it doesn't matter to Him if I'm a toothless pirate ... ahoy mateys ... God loves me and He loves you, too. Yep, He surely does.