Pimples: A Love Story

Ages 14 to 24 I call my “decade of acne.” I went to the dermatologist every month, put goop on my face every day, and tried hard to avoid pimple food. This was before “Proactive.” The best we had was “Oxy 10.” The stuff my dermatologist prescribed was a useless, thick white paste that I smeared all over my face every night (and every night it smeared off onto my pillow). Three of those years were my Briercrest years, and the school was small enough that you knew everyone. So I can definitively report that in the pimples category I was top of my class three years in a row. In the 1978-1979 Briercrest yearbook (p.19) there is a picture of me working on my face in front of the mirror in the “B” Dorm second floor washroom. The caption says: “Mirror, mirror on the wall: is it a dimple or a pimple?”

I’m blogging in order to learn from my life’s experiences and from the Bible’s truths—to see how my experiences have bumped up against biblical truths, and how the Bible interprets my life. So now I would now like to share my reflections upon the adventure of a decade lived among the pimples.

I felt bad. This is my most vivid recollection. I felt bad about myself. (OK, I’ll say it again: some of my “hard times” stories are amazingly wussy. This is miniscule when compared to the suffering of so many. But I’ll also say again that my stuff is my stuff. Click away if you want. This is me). I felt bad about myself because I was blemished. When I saw the old movie “The Face Behind the Mask” I could relate to Peter Lorre, who plays a guy whose face was badly burned, and when he eventually meets a kind (and blind) woman he says “My face is aaagly; could you love meee?” I really catastrophized. I let the lowly pimple do a number on my self-worth. (Of course I had them a hundred at a pop). I was aware that I was wrongly judging myself, but I couldn’t shake the verdict. I related to good old Peter Lorre. I related to those Old Testament lepers: “Unclean!”

Of course I understood that God (and anyone else with any maturity) would know that it’s what’s inside that counts. God even said it to Samuel as he sought a man after God’s own heart to replace the superficially perfect man for the job King Saul. “For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). Yes, that’s right—it’s the heart that matters, not the skin. “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov 4:23).

OK, my heart was pretty messed up too. The heart is the love zone, and I loved myself a lot. I loved myself according to sin’s normal promptings: pride, comparing, judging, needing to be at least above average. Typical sinful self-love. The flip side of this kind of self-love is self-loathing which I was excelling at it. God looks on the heart. Great. But just because you have an “acne motif” outward appearance does not guarantee you have a great looking heart. I didn’t.

While I was judging myself by my complexion, I was pretty consistent in judging everyone else by appearances too. Even at Bible College, though I knew better, I assumed the best people were the best looking people. I was getting what I was giving. The measure by which I judged others was the measure by which I judged myself.

I learned all the above. I learned how easy it is to catastrophize, making mountains out of mole hills. I learned that even when you understand that “it’s what’s inside that counts,” you can still feel like scum for the most superficial of reasons. I learned that a bad outward appearance does not guarantee a lovely heart. And I learned that if you set up wretched standards by which you judge others, you’ll probably judge yourself by those same standards.

But here’s my favorite thing that I learned: be loved. I’ve mentioned my sinful self-love. OK, so biblically, how should I love myself? Accept God’s love for me. Bask in it. Embrace it. Receive it. I don’t deserve his love but he loves me anyway, and I shouldn’t waste his good, good love. So I’ll open up my messed-up heart and be loved. When I was yielding more pimples per acre than anyone else at Briercrest, God loved me. A bunch of neat people loved me. Anne even fell in love with me. (I’d tell her in my best Peter Lorre voice “my face is aaagly—could you love meee?”)

Pimples became a love story. Just be loved.