REDEFINED POINT OF VIEW

Yesterday morning I heard a heart-wrenching but happy ending testimony of a converted ex-transvestite (let’s call him Jon), born with birth defect so horrendous that his own Dad thought of him as a curse instead of a son. He was without legs, so when he stands, he’ll just reach your waist.
He grew up being rejected, an eyesore to his Dad insomuch one day he intentionally stepped on his mouth as he was laying on the carpet watching TV. Jon was also locked up in his room every time they had any family feasts. His Dad would threat him not to make any sound so that no guest would know that he existed. Once he swallowed all the drugs he found in his room in a suicidal attempt, but he survived.
When finally he could get out and play like he wanted all those times, he could not keep up with boys who were running around, being tough, so his companies were mostly girls until he finally turned to be one of them.
‘She’ left her house and started to make a living, standing out in the streets with scanty clothes, her face now pretty with lots of make-up and seductive smile, her heart yearning for a father’s figure, man’s love she always wanted but never got. 14 years passed and she fell deeper and deeper in the black abyss. She now ‘worked’ in a pub, had a steady boyfriend, sold and used drugs, sold some girls and being sold herself.
“I knew I was so filthy, disgusting, a social thrash, good for nothing,” he admitted. His face was tearstained, his voice trembled. “I came to God once, not planning to repent, but asking Him to take my life. But instead, He came and touched me and healed my wounds.”
Her quest to find God had not been smooth either. She tried several time, all of them ended with some ‘holy’ people told him what to do. “You have to change right now, otherwise you’ll go to hell!” one of them told her so, at their first encounter. “They didn’t ask me how I ended up that way, they did not want to know. They just judged me in the first place,” he said. To me, it sounds like asking someone to go to the fiercest battle without equipping him with any weapon. So there’s only two possibilities; either he’ll die miserably, or he’ll run off. Fortunately, Jon didn’t stop there. But, the next one was even worse. Shes was invited to a youth fellowship where he saw warmth, kind of family she’d longed to be a part pf. She was moved that she shared everything with them, but when she admitted her being transvestite. “The leader of the group cut me off right away, and then told my friend not to invite me to come again. I was crushed.”
Listening to his amazing stories and watching his slideshow about his past really moved me. There’s a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, as well as guilt and shame in my heart for my tendency to also judge people like him by their outward appearance. How many times did I met them on the streets and shrugged my shoulder in disgust, and could not help feeling alarmed being near them? How many times they wished they had never been born, when the police raided them, or when people abused them and made them the joke? Nobody wants to be that way, including them. And instead of understanding and helping them find a solution, we shoo them away, looking at them with disdain, treating them with disrespect or indifference while up above, God loves us both equally, and He must’ve been hurt to see our arrogance and their misery, both is related to each other though most of the time, we’re not even aware of it.
I really want to see them with God’s eyes and see them through their hearts, with mine. After all, we’re all created by Him according to His good image, though unfortunately, some (or should I say all of us, to some extent?) have been ruined by the sinful nature, abusive parents, social prejudice. And clearly, some damages are worse than the other. Jon’s story has helped me a lot redefine my point of view. I’m not saying that I agree with their behavior or that I want to justify their choice of life. There are some things that are clearly black or white, wrong or right, to me, and I can’t compromise my belief just to make others happy. But, what I mean is, at least we can learn not to judge, but listen to their reasons and understand them. By understanding more, we can love more too. And through love, nothing is impossible, even if it means to straight up a messed up life.
However, the only question that remains with me now is, what can I do for them? Crying, lamenting, or writing about it doesn’t seem to help much.
Jon’s case ended happily (praise the Lord for that!). He found his God, reconciled with his Dad, and leads a new life with a new spirit. But how many have a different ending with his? And does not it strike us to think that actually we, as a community, might’ve taken a part in their bad endings, or might’ve helped them go through it and triumph?
(Yea, you might as well call me a naïve girl who wishes to change the world with her little hands, and the awareness of her helplessness often more than not, frustrates her…)