i was born to my parents andrew and jeanette tufano on november 13, 1984. i weighted 9lbs and was 22 inches long. i’m not sure if you know much about newborns, but i was huge! i won a candy bar in my biology class 7th grade year for being exceptional in that category! interestingly enough by the time i reached 1st grade, my parents concerns shifted one-eighty. they felt i wasn’t gaining enough weight and was too skinny, so they took me to our family doctor, who promptly informed them that i was perfectly fine and would fill out soon enough. well here i stand at 23, six foot tall and about 170lbs. i guess our doctor was right!
psalm 139:16
your eyes saw my unformed body
all the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be
i was also born with a mark on the left side of my face, essentially a large portion of the left side of my face is a different pigment, or skin color, and since i was born that way, it’s called a birthmark! and let me tell you i’ve met a lot of people in my days, and none yet have one like it.
so your probably wondering why i’m bragging about my awesome birth stats, my toothpick status as a 1st grader, and my unusual facial features. well it’s because i’m weird and so are you!
since i don’t want you to get the wrong impression, i’m not sharing this with you to receive sympathy over the hand i was dealt, or to prove how i’ve overcome life’s obstacles. instead, i believe God fashioned me uniquely in order to serve the purpose for which He created me.
psalm 139:13
for You created my inmost being
You knit me together in my mother’s womb
“okay” you agree, “your weird, but what’s it to me?” well, i believe He created you uniquely as well, or as i’ll affectionately call it, weird!
so my dad and i are almost mirror images, in every way. i share his strengths as well as his weaknesses. we are both analytical, both athletic, same personality, same temperament, same sense of humor, and on i could go. so growing up, my dad wasn’t exactly the most objective person in helping me identify my own weirdness. since we shared the same weirdness, to him it was normal. and although my mom was totally different, she was my mom, and any weirdness just made me that much more endearing. so although she could identify it, she’d never point it out, she wouldn’t see the value in doing so, only the possible hurt it might cause.
it would seem that the type of people that reveal it the most, are the ones who are most different from you. and for me, it was during my high school years that my weirdness seemed most recognizable. it seems like everyone during those years was extremely gifted at pointing out anything that was different about everyone else.
although it was during this time that i was able to recognize my own weirdness, instead of embracing it, i did everything i could to hide it. i thought then that although it was okay to be weird, you didn’t want to go around advertising it. i couldn’t have cared less weather i fit in, but i definitely didn’t want to stand out either. it seemed anything that stood out, was put on display and publicly mocked. at home, i could be weird, because at home weird was acceptable. but out in public, i put on a facade that i thought everyone wanted to see.
as the years passed, i began to realize how extensive this facade had become. the person looking back at me in the mirror and the person people knew didn’t match up. so the person who had classmates, coworkers, and friends, wasn’t me. it was a fake, a facade i’d created. my greatest fear was rejection. my parents rejected each other when they divorced when i was 2. i felt rejected regularly by my father during my childhood; weather to career, self interests, or wives (he’s on number 4). and i felt rejected by my mother when she moved away to bible college. i’d placed my value and worth in their love and acceptance, and they failed me. so to protect myself from further pain, i created this facade. i vowed to never again allow anyone to hurt me as those closest to me had. my facade served its purpose well, it kept people from hurting me, but it had an unintended side affect, it kept people from knowing and loving the real me.
consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
james 1:2-4
but through these trials, God never failed me, instead He used their failures to remind me of my adoption as His son, and Christs sufficient grace. He mercifully revealed that He alone is steadfast and unfailing, and that in Him alone would i find meaning and purpose. In seeing through these lenses, God began destroying the facade i created. He began reconciling the person i saw in the mirror, and the person people knew. It was through this process that God enabled me to embrace my unique wiredness.
but He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” therefore i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 cor 12:9
what once brought shame God now uses to breath life. He used my broken and dysfunctional childhood to give me an understanding of suffering. this understanding allows me to relate and have compassion for the suffering of others. He uses my frame and unusual facial features to allow me to stand out. people seem to remember me, and the words i speak. He uses me as His instrument to speak and convey the truth of His son and the gospel.
1 cor 12:7;11
now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
all these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one, just as He determines.
but this is just my unique weirdness, the way God has chosen to fashion me. i am but one part of the body, and the body requires all of its parts to function. you are another part, and God has fashioned you uniquely as well. i pray you that you would see through the gospel lenses, and that He would enable you to embrace your unique weirdness.
now the body is not made up of one part but of many. if the foot should say, “because i am not a hand, i do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. and if the ear should say, “because i am not an eye, i do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. if the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? if the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? but in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. if they were all one part, where would the body be? as it is, there are many parts, but one body.
1 cor 12:14-20
