As she was lying on the bed, she examined her fingernails. There was not a day she could remember not having those little white marks. Each nail had had its own pattern. Some only had one or two but others had more than ten that overlapped and created abstract paintings of random white wisps on a hard dead-celled canvas.
Ten years back, she had felt shame was the shadow of her nails. When she coloured the walls of her room, her fingers were curled. When she recited the alphabet, her fingers were curled. When she began adding and subtracting numbers, her fingers were curled. When she was memorizing phyla of the Animal Kingdom, her fingers were curled. When she took her high school entrance exam, her fingers were curled. She had been anxious someone would see those white marks and remark about their oddity. Several times had her classmates noticed and with a repulsive look asked why she had nails different from everybody else’s.
Her dad said it was because she didn’t have enough Vitamin C in her body. Her best friend said it was because she drank too much milk. Her classmate said it was because each white mark signified one person who liked her. She couldn’t decide what to believe in for she ate oranges, drank milk only every morning, and certainly was not the apple of thirty pairs of eyes. She had thought that if her nails would continue to have those dreadful marks, she would resort to wearing foul-smelling nail polish when she would have grown another foot taller.
Maybe, her fingernail dilemma wasn’t really a big thing. After all, there were a hundred other graver problems that the world had to face.
Unfortunately, the beliefs of one as a child could not easily be abandoned. They would act like shackles to one’s feet and restrain one’s desires to alter his attitude even as time passed. Thus, she grew up with the notion that her greatest fault would be her streaked nails that screamed aversion to anyone she was to cross paths with.
She rested her head on her pillow and stared at the ceiling. It was bizarre how she could not recall that feeling of anxiety anymore. It had been three years since she last curled her fingers and was afraid someone would mock her in his head. She had already been reciting the Oath of Allegiance to the country without the thought that someone in the back of the line was silently ridiculing her fingernails. She had already realized that however she appeared to be, God loved her all the same.
The realization came in a snap but the transformation and renewing of the wirings in her brain was an arduous process of constant reminders of God’s unconditional love. He did not see people’s flaws but rather Christ who dwelt in them. He designed each of his sons and daughters the most perfect and suitable way He could imagine. It didn’t matter to Him whether you had a tumour or not, white-marked nails or not, one simply had to have the faith in Him and believed that His grace is more than sufficient to live life to its fullest.
She reached out for the blanket and tucked herself in. As she closed her eyes, she laughed at the thought of having seemingly insignificant white marks strengthen her faith. In the end, it was truly the faithful in very little who was also faithful in much. She breathed a sigh of relief and slept with a smile on her face.