By Mark Wilmoth

In The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird tells about her childhood: “I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech.

“When schoolmates asked, “What happened to your lip?” I’d tell them I’d fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me.

“There was, however, a teacher in the second grade whom we all adored — Mrs. Leonard by name. She was short, round, happy, a sparkling lady.

“Annually we had a hearing test … Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back — things like “The sky is blue” or “Do you have new shoes?” I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, “I wish you were my little girl.”

Most folks want to fit in. The disabled don’t like to be treated like they’re outcasts. No one wants to be picked last for a team. Approaching puberty, children begin to worry that they won’t be eye-catching enough to attract attention from the opposite sex. Recruits feel enormous pressure to make it through boot camp, not failing in the eyes of other soldiers, family and friends. Church members want to feel like valued members of the congregation. No one wants to be ostracized.

Jonah felt that pressure when God sent him to preach in Ninevah. Ninevah, the capital city of Assyria, was the last place where Jonah wanted to preach! Patriotic enough to welcome the destruction of Israel’s most powerful enemy, Jonah wanted no part of “saving” Ninevah from God’s wrath. Jonah recognized that being the hero of Ninevah would make him a pariah to Israel, a traitor to his own country. So Jonah boarded a boat for Tarshish, heading as far in the opposite direction from Ninevah as possible. That’s when Jonah learned that his desire to fit in with the people of Israel fitted him for the gut of a fish!

But can we turn that story around for a moment, and see it from the perspective of the Assyrians? They’re outcasts. They’re the folks Jonah doesn’t want to include, the last folks that anyone in Israel would think should receive God’s blessing. To Jonah, the Assyrians seem like bikers coming to church in tattoos and leather jackets or headbangers who pull up in the parking lot in a car heard coming a half mile away. The Assyrians are like homosexuals holding hands on the back row. As far as Jonah is concerned, the Assyrians will NEVER fit in!

But they wanted to. The Assyrians wanted to please God and avoid punishment, so as soon as Jonah got out of the fish and began to preach, they repented in sackcloth and ashes. God honored their repentance, and Assyria was spared.

After spending a week visiting patients in a San Francisco AIDS clinic, Henri Nouwen spoke to author and preacher Philip Yancey. Nouwen said, “I’m a priest, and as part of my job I listen to people’s stories. So I went up and down the wards and asked the patients, most of them young men, if they wanted to talk.” As Nouwen listened to the stories of promiscuity and addiction and self-destructive behavior, he realized that what the young men really sought was acceptance and love. Nouwen claimed that the experience had changed his prayers to, “God help me to see others not as my enemies or as ungodly, but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.”

All around us are “Assyrians” who seek acceptance and love. God doesn’t expect us to minimize their fault or excuse wrong behavior. But we can recognize that they are people just like us – sinners that He wants to forgive and include in His family!

Mark Wilmoth is with Pinehurst Christian Church in Marietta.

For more information regarding Pinehurst Christian Church, visit www.PinehurstChristianChurch.org.