The Other Side

By Sandra Ostapowich

I killed my grandma when I was seven years old—or at least that’s what I thought. My mom and I stopped over at my grandma’s house on the way home from the hospital. I had just had some reconstructive surgery to help my appearance. You see, I was born with a cleft lip. Only this time, things hadn’t gone so smoothly with the surgery.

A couple of weeks before the surgery, I had the chicken pox and had taken aspirin for a fever. The aspirin thinned my blood. When the doctor performed my operation, I had an unusual amount of bleeding and swelling. So what was supposed to be a simple procedure, ended up being a two-week hospital stay. I looked horrible. My upper lip was so swollen I couldn’t even stick my tongue out. I was a mess.

So when we stopped at my grandparents house on the way home from the hospital, I was very self-conscious about my appearance. I remember opening the door and stepping into the kitchen with my mom behind me. Grandma was getting lunch ready. When she saw me, she stopped, looked at me, and started to cry. I knew I looked bad, but didn’t realize I was ugly enough to make my grandma cry! I ran off and watched TV in the den until it was time to go home. Mom tried to explain that grandma was crying because she was so happy I was alright, but I didn’t believe her. People don’t cry when they’re happy.

A week later, I turned seven. I remember mom talking about grandma going to the hospital for some hearing tests. Next thing I knew, everything was crazy. I found out grandma had a stroke during the hearing test. I thought it was my fault because I had made her cry. I couldn’t go visit her at the hospital because I was too young. Then a week later, I was attending her funeral.

Of course, now that I am an adult, I know better. I do not have Medusa-like powers to kill anyone who gazes upon my face. But it took a long time for me to grasp that concept. And I had plenty more operations to remind me that my outside appearance doesn’t matter to people who sincerely care about me.

Most often, we scheduled my operations during the summer, so I didn’t have to see many people until school started in the fall. But just to keep me humble, God arranged it so that a few operations took place during the school year. I have to wonder what people thought when I showed up at school with stitches and bandages in weird places. The usual upturned-nose, sideways eye-rolling glances from the popular girls became quick glances and embarrassed expressions. Some of the guys thought it was cool. They seemed more willing to talk to me in passing, as though I was somehow tougher for having the guts to walk around looking strange. Of course, everything was back to normal after a few weeks. But it got me thinking that there may be more to this whole cleft-lip surgery thing than just God throwing punches at me. Maybe there was more to it than just having to suffer through discomfort and embarrassment? There had to be another perspective I hadn’t yet found.

All my life, I had never paid much attention to the baptisms I witnessed in church. I knew that babies were baptized at my church, and other churches didn’t baptize babies. But I didn’t understand why or think much of it. Growing up in Minnesota, most of the people I knew were either Lutheran or Catholic, and had been baptized as babies too. Those people who weren’t baptized yet, I saw as unusual. In confirmation class, I learned what baptism was and what it accomplishes. My eyes were opened to the other side of the Cross when I heard how, because of sin, we are all born spiritually blind, dead, and enemies of God—not to mention with physical defects, illnesses, and other maladies. All of that is washed away in Jesus’ blood that He shed for us on the Cross. The stuff I have had to suffer through wasn’t the end of the story! As far as God is concerned, I have been perfect since the moment I was baptized and made His child.

I may still get a bit depressed now and then about having a bad hair day, gaining weight, having a zit on my face, or having a scar that will never go away. And I may get self-conscious about how I look to others. But I can remember my baptism and that God doesn’t see those things when He looks at me. The Cross stands between me and God. So when He looks at me through it, He sees the new me clothed in Christ and without a body marked by sin. It doesn’t matter that I bought my jeans at K-Mart, my shirt off the clearance rack, I have a crooked nose and that my face is scarred. That’s only one view of me and not the one that ultimately counts.

Sandra Ostapowich is a member at St. John's Ev. Luth. Church in Maple Grove, MN.