Have you ever walked into a room and felt completely out of place? Like somehow there was something inherently flawed about you? That for some reason you just did not belong? Perhaps it’s happened to you from within a room you were even invited into. This room could’ve been real- a home, an office, a church, but it also could’ve been figurative- Facebook, Instagram, social media. A few years ago, my family and I went ice skating, and I gotta tell ya', I was pretty excited to unveil my hidden talent to my family. As I glided around the rink, twirling and leaping, my kids grew more and more impressed with me, and my ego soared like the applause after Michelle Kwan’s triple axel. Cue the fall… Except this time, it was an emotional wipe out. My talents had also caught the attention of a sweet, 5-year-old onlooker. She approached me earnestly, I assumed to marvel at my talent, but when she reached me her question knocked the elation right out of me. “Why do you have a hole in your neck?” She hadn’t noticed my spins; the little girl had noticed the 1 inch scar left behind from my tracheostomy. As I explained to her how I had earned this scar, she noticed something else that was different about me from other people she had come to know… “Stick out your tongue.” Well, she got me with that one. You see, I don’t have a tongue to stick out. After multiple surgeries, I have a reconstructed tongue that allows me to speak and eat and swallow, although not without difficulty. My tongue is tethered and is no longer something I could stick out even if I wanted to. This is not new information to me. I have been learning to grow into and accept my differences for years now, but I have to say, “Even though I’ve grown accustomed to it, it’s not always easy for me when people point out how I’m different.” Sometimes I think it takes us longer to embrace who we are, because it’s so painful to let go of who we used to be. Often, these changes come to us as the result of some uncontrollable circumstance. I’m grateful to still be alive, but what is also true is Cancer stole my once smooth speech and neck. Admittedly, it took me four years to change the message on my voicemailbox, because I had recorded it before surgeries slurred my speech. “Honestly, I didn’t want to let the girl go. The girl with the perfect speech. The me that I used to be. I didn’t want to say goodbye to her.” The innocent girl’s inquiries that day made me realize something. “We’ve come to believe that our value comes with our ability to blend in.” We work so hard to mask our own differences, and we are awkward about others’. But really, “Behind our discomfort with difference is a deep need for significance.” In relationship, differences often feel like conflict, and the difficulty with conflict is that we become convinced we have to pick a side. Does this person’s difference deserve grace or truth? In chapter 9 of Relentless, I retell the transfiguration story where Peter, James, and John went up the mountain and witnessed Jesus’ appearance transfigured into God before their very eyes. It wasn’t that he changed people completely; essentially, the veil was lifted momentarily to reveal who he had been all along- God. This brings us to Altar Stone #9: Look for God’s presence in the place of your transformation. We are all in process. This week, I want you to revisit the middle of your hard story and look for evidence of God’s presence in the disfigured parts.