A disfigured face does not matter as to the type of person you are. A disfigured soul is something else. I truly pity parents who would turn their back on a child because of the outward appearance of the child. We are all made in the image of a loving God, in that we are able to love and be loved.
Bonus:
This is the age of disposability.
Obgyn tells the couple that the fetus she is carrying is undoubtedly a downs syndrome baby.
Abort.
Why?
The litany of fear pours out of the doctor’s mouth, in the best of intentions mind you.
Abort.
The age is an age of doubt, fear, selfishness and greed. Vice’s become celebrated. Choices based upon feelings at the time override commonsense.
Shallowness of spirit, heart and morals lead a parent to abandon themselves. In their own abandonment they adopt a false self. In that lie they in turn find no reason to associate with a child who is physically flawed..their child.
It’s a reflection of their disordered soul…a reminder of their flaws..of their darkness because that’s what they have cherished in their blind pursuits without God.
I doubt that a parent who has faith would ever consider cutting off their limb as the parents did by abandoning their disfigured child.
I say limb because it’s a part of who they are, the parent. Their child is a very real part of themselves.
To self mutilate is a grave disorder.
This age is an incredible age of lost souls.
The question is, what are we doing to help them back to find their true identity?
Thanks for sharing this. Found that humbling to watch- the forgiveness he has in his heart. I feel sorry that his parents didn’t want to reconnect with him and that’s a massive loss to them.
I quite like the sound of his voice
When my sister’s boy was getting help at Shriner’s, my mom– who can’t not talk to babies– ended up in an elevator with a mom and a six to nine month old little girl.
Cleft pallet, a very extreme one– her lip was split halfway to her nose. Happy kid, though.
Again, being my mom, she cooed at the baby something like “Ah, hello sweetheart, no question what you’re here for, is there?” and the girl’s mom started bawling. Mom, of course, figured she’d Said Something Wrong, figured there was something ELSE wrong and the little girl was going to die or something equally horrible….
Short version, the husband had divorced the lady over not killing their daughter (over something that they can correct IN FREAKING RURAL AFRICA and which would be nothing but a hairline scar by the time she was three, mind you) and even at Shriner’s, nobody would look at her. There were tons of babies all around who were facing life-ending problems, but they looked perfect, people didn’t ignore that they existed.
Poor kid was beating herself up over feeling bad when people whose babies might die got attention, while people ignored her little girl because she was unslightly, when her heart was already bleeding by finding out her husband was worthless.
Mom ended up telling that story a few years later, with the fiance of one of my sister’s friends there, and he blinks a few times and rattles off some stuff about that Shriner’s hospital– points at what she’d figured was a normal-kid-accident scar on his lip. He’d had cleft pallet that actually went into his nasal cavity from the front, they’d rebuilt it. Kid was old enough to be the baby’s father, for how long that’s been normal….
I think part of it might be just that people don’t know how to deal with “different.” The guy up top, and the little girl, do look different– we don’t have a polite system to deal with that, so folks avoid. My husband got pulled to one side at church because a pair of parents wanted to thank him for our kids. Their son’s diagnosed high functioning spectrum and nobody treated him normally, including other families with a son like that– except for our kids.
For something that was solidly inside of “normal, bet he’s a geek” to either of us.
I know I’ve mentioned it before– but “lonely” just chews on people.
Good work on that guy fighting it.
Still made in the image of God, still loved by the Almighty.
(also I liked the Churchill clip, Don – great men are often humbled by each other)
Churchill was struck by the courage of the pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain. They were usually very young men who also knew that their chances of making it through their service without death or injury were slim, but they flew their missions each day with an elan that elicited admiration and emulation.
If we cannot accept Jono Lancaster in the YouTube video above, then how shall we accept Jesus Christ? As Isaiah 5:2-3 states:
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
My father, a devout Pentecostal to the day of his death in 92, was convinced that Jesus wasn’t handsome at all. The prophet Isaiah says the Lord had no desirable form, comeliness, or beauty; that He was despised and rejected; that we men hid our faces from Him! We could not behold such ugliness in appearance. How we treat people like Jono Lancaster therefore is how we would treat the Lord. And what we think is ugly perhaps is really beautiful.
Isaiah 53 – argh! Where’s edit when you need it?
Jono does have an exceptionally nice voice. Looked up Treachers-Collins Syndrome. A couple had a daughter with this inherited disorder. Juliana was missing 40 bones in her face. Her deformities were so severe she was known as the girl w/o face. After multiple surgeries , hearing implants and glasses she has a countenance. Experienced with parenting a T-C child her parents searched for another child with the same syndrome and adopted a Ukrainian girl. Danica and Juliana are happy sisters. God bless them and Jono, his adoptive mother.
I had to revisit this because within the interview he stated how much he appreciated his birth parents giving him life. He has a peacefulness that is attractive and his voice is a reflection, I believe, of that inner peace. What a man.
He loves his face.
I would like to know about his faith journey. Just curious.
God bless the human angel who swooped into his early years and made him her own kin.
God bless her.