Born Without a Smile

It is frequently said that once upon a time something happened, and we can ready ourselves for a story that will engage our hearts in its magnetic and universal appeal.

This story didn’t happen once upon a time, it actually happened on a definite date that we can point to. Its compelling and riveting attraction is in the sweetness of its central character: a little courageous girl born without a smile.

A special nerve and a muscle, which we normally have in our cheeks, were missing from both sides of her tiny bright face. Due to a rare neurological condition known as Moebius Syndrome the corners of her mouth could not turn upward in that delightful response of joy, that we so often take for granted

A smile, even from an infant, seems such a natural movement to the kindnesses, and to the echoing of a parent’s happiness, that waft their way into each new young life.

This little girl had to somehow assure her parents and loved ones that the smile was on her heart, although not on her face. Would the gratitude be enough for them to know her pleasure in their enjoyment of her without the glint of a smile? Would they all be able to celebrate her laughing soul if her face remained unmoving? Could they keep smiling at her, as they felt deeply the sorrow of her lost beam? Was her cooing as charming, as inviting, as those other smiling ones with whom she shared her first nursery? Would she be stereotyped as a joyless child, one with a flat-affect, although on the inside she laughed gaily at each puppy-antic, at each funny face from a relative? Would they stop trying to make her laugh because they thought it only had to do with a nerve and a muscle?

So many questions arose for me when I heard of her early and most extraordinary plight. Favorite friends smiles from my past came before my eyes in a warm-hearted display--here, I saw a set of adorably gapped teeth, and there a broad glowing forehead, here a wrinkled nose, and there a roseate dimpled cheek--and I wanted each one at its best for her. I wanted everything that her tiny heart must have struggled to evidence to pull the darling corners of her mouth into a triumphant grin.

Something about that absent sign of a child’s gladness plagued my heart with such an insistence that I implored daily for her in my prayers. My thoughts were often on those many questions about how and why. The very questions that children ask constantly with their adventurously curious minds--those ones that bring answers with such smiles to their faces, were the ones that kept recurring for me. My face was growing long over her questions for which I was not receiving answers.

I followed her progress in the news, and just before she turned eight it was time that the surgeons could do their work. And what a worthy and ingenious surgery it was! Our God, Whose Countenance shines like a smile on His children gave the increase to the hands and minds of the doctors.

I saw pictures of her after her recovery from the first surgery that replaced a nerve and a muscle in her face that she was able to sacrifice from her leg. Her right cheek leapt joyfully into the formerly unreached heights of a smile. Certainly, at first, she was not completely sure of the movement, but she would have much time for practice.

Her parents seemed so wise and graciously protective of their treasured daughter. I felt I was getting answers--that her heart and theirs had been strong enough for the assurance that smiling is from the inside, and with this intervention it would move up to her lips in a kiss of jubilation. The next operation would give her this beguiling ability in full.

I was grateful for the skill of the surgeons’ hands. Whether or not they had known it they carried the artistry of the Great Physician to light up the beauty of one of His sunbeams.

That first awkward little half-grin had flooded with the light of simple revelation all my dark questions: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world!” The old song came to my mind. I knew that if I had longed for the glow of a child’s smile, that it was only a dim flicker of the blaze over how much the Lord wanted it there. So much did He want it that even the little legs that gave her the joy of running would not be hindered to give the proof of her joy-elated heart.

How we all must give thankful praise for the hope and tenderness held in a child’s miraculous smile!

You may wonder why I have related this thrilling recovery here, and why it was so crucial to my heart. Why did the story pursue me in such a personal way?

I believe that before my salvation I lived where the little girl with the lost smile lived. I did not know if the sun would ever burst forth. The dark covering threatened to become permanent. I would always be that somber person with a frozen frown with so many angry and unanswered questions.

I couldn’t show my gratitude to anyone. It was so locked-up in darkness under a motionless face.

Then the Great Physician sent some lovingly skillful hands. The hands belonged to a beaming face (the one that would eventually become my dear husband, Jim) and together we said a prayer: “Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner. Please come into my life and forgive me of all sin. I believe you died for my sins on the Cross and rose from the dead. Now fill me with Your Holy Spirit, and guide me from this day forward. Thank you Lord for loving me! Amen.”

Miraculously the nerves and muscles that were so spiritually broken in my face were brought to life and turned up into the smile that He always had for me-- over my Savior, the Lover of our souls. He never wanted me to live in the dark cellar of that smile-less place. He replaced the frown with a smile that is always tied like a beautiful present to my heart. It came from the inside out over what He did for me. How the Heavenly Father must have loved to see the radiant smile on His formerly joyless daughter’s face!

No damage was done to my legs, because the Cross of Christ carried the complete cure. He still allows me to run about joyously smiling because I know that I can trust Him eternally with the gratitude that shows on my face.

When I first started to walk in the resurrecting power of Christ, perhaps my smile was a little awkward, because it was so remarkably new to one so long in sorrow, but He knew it was real. What is this resurrecting power if it is not the Father smiling upon me, lifting my head to greet Him with the smile that He always had just for me? I’ve been practicing this smile now for nearly 35 years, and to see it reflected back from other faces is one of my true joys. Sometimes I have been called Smiley, and that is quite wonderful to me. I felt its lack for so long that as the little girl born without a smile I want to shine it all over especially to encourage the untrusting, the hurt, and the implacable faces that I meet.

The world needs repaired smiles that emanate from a true heart filled with the Holy Spirit. We are indeed, in the vernacular of a little child, His Son-beams.

The Scripture says it most brilliantly in Proverbs 15:13: “A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, but when the heart is sad the spirit is broken.” By this I know that a smile cannot be a flimsy thing—a broken spirit longs, and even can be lost, were it not for the surgery of the Cross that assures a cheerful face. Jesus was called the Man of Sorrows as He bore sin upon the Cross. The Crucifixion is a place without a smile where Jesus’ mouth turned down for us, so that in His resurrection our smiles could again turn upward, brightening all of heaven over the children of God no longer born without smiles.

May you feel deeply in your heart that a smile is a triumphant arc signaling an open heaven to come down and banish darkness. Your smile is as singular as a once upon forever time. May you always know the warming Countenance of the Lord over your gorgeous smile!

Good Friday's Tree

It is Good Friday, and my theme is trees. No, it is actually just about one tree, the one appointed for the lifting-up of our Savior--the one upon which He said He would draw all men to Himself (John 12:32).

It was said in Jesus’ time that a criminal’s death was the most shameful if it was upon a tree--by crucifixion! But our Carpenter King made this statement about the wood upon which He would be sacrificed as the place of His lifting-up.

We were looking for a king who would talk about his elevated throne covered in precious gems, high above us, from which he would recue us from the world’s political peril, and from the oppression of evil. Jesus said to watch as He was lifted-up above the world on Golgotha’s Hill on a blood-washed tree.

He came to die for us. And there was one tree selected upon which He would save us. The shame implied by dying on a tree would not get on Him, because He was without sin (although tempted in all of our ways), but every one of our sins would brutally land on the pure Savior. On His wooden Cross, which pointed always to His Father, He had a far better-than-a-throne, for the rescuing of His own. He had the bridge between heaven and earth--the only one that could span the massive gap between our fallen ways, and the God Who is Good. This was a supernaturally tall and powerful tree!

The Cross of Christ started from a little seed, perhaps planted, or blown by the wind, or hidden by one of the creatures. Its beginning, as with all of the sentry-like homes for the forest animals and the birds of the air, was with little attention, often without a thought for the coming strength and might, and with years as a blown-low sapling that could be pulled from the ground by almost anyone. Who could have foreseen which one would reach into the Home of Jesus’ Father?

The diameter of a tree spreads in layers called annual growth rings. Each year a layer of wood is grown to eventually give the girth of a forest giant.  From the very field where the Cross was felled there may have been many trees that Jesus Himself had shaped into a baby’s cradle, a doorway lintel, a dining table, a chair for His family, handles for tools, floor boards, a even boat--like the one He would later teach from. But never would the tree that had been selected for the Cross have come through His carpentry shop. He would carry that wood, His own killing machine, to Calvary, but he would not carve it.

The image that I’ve posted shows Jesus giving up His last breath on the Cross (That is how one died in a crucifixion--by suffocation. The arms could no longer hold up the chest and the lungs were shut down by the weight.) The art is from the Grotto in Portland, Oregon. I believe that it was not a part of the installation to have a felled tree next to the scene, but rather a coincidence of the care of the grounds. It made the Cross so poignant to me to see a tree that could easily have been fashioned into the Cross to which the One Who would eternally set us free was nailed.

I thought about the Annual Growth Rings that I could see on the bottom slice of the downed tree. That tree--the real one--that became the Savior’s Cross had a designated time. Jesus often talked about how His time had not yet come, knowing that His death on the bloody Cross was also appointed for our salvation.

As I looked at the drooping head of the Lord, and then back again to the tree and its timed-out rings, I realized that I too had an appointed time. The sun burst through the woodland thicket over the sweet head of the Redeemer reminding me with a stunning brilliance: When I came before the Cross of Christ and asked Him to forgive my sin and to come into my life as Lord, that was my exact time to be lifted up with Him by His Good Friday Cross.

From that time on I would be: “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” 2 Corinthians 4:10 The Carpenter King had actually fashioned a bridge for me by His wooden Cross.

He has done it for you too, and the appointed time is when your heart wants the widest embrace in the universe—the one that reaches down from the Cross and invites you to walk upon its wooden bridge into an open heaven of His mercy and loving compassion. You are never timed-out. The appointed time is always now with Jesus.