Lemons and Apples

For some reason this past week my hair kept parting to expose the scar on my head. Usually my hair covers the scar and I don’t even think about it. But this week the hair kept separating so that the bald line showed. You must know, however, that when I say “showed” it was noticeable to me, but anyone else probably wouldn’t even have suspected it was a scar. To anyone else it probably just looked like a part in the hair. I put goop and water on it and worked to get the hair to cover the spot and it sometimes worked, but as I put all that effort into hiding a tiny scar, it made me think a lot about how we magnify and then try to hide our faults.

So often we see everything that isn’t up to par in us and then judge ourselves by those things. This means we compare ourselves—the worst in us—to the best in others. Then we go around feeling inadequate. How strange! You can’t judge the quality of an apple by comparing it to a lemon! And yet we do it with our talents, looks, personalities, intelligence and everything else about ourselves.

This has caused me to do some soul searching and I’ve now decided to stop judging completely. My scar is actually a reminder of miracles and blessings. Having it visible once in awhile should be my badge of courage, not something to be embarrassed about. So from now on, I’m not going to fret about it. I’m just going to concentrate on being the best lemon I can be and let someone else worry about apples.