When I was born three months premature, the doctors discovered that I had a heart condition known as an atrial septal defect (or a hole in the heart). When I was two years old, I had surgery to correct it, and thankfully, it was a success. The problem was that I still felt different. When relatives, family friends, and strangers called me their little "miracle baby," I feared that people would only see me as the girl who had heart surgery. I didn't want people to treat me like I was still sick or assume that I was incapable of accomplishing things on my own.

Because I didn't want others to know that I had had heart surgery or ask me questions about it, I consciously avoided wearing clothing that showed my scar. Shopping as a young girl was a nightmare because I felt like my choices of tops, bathing suits, fancy dresses, and even future wedding gowns were extremely limited. I felt like I had been cheated out of a normal and fulfilling life. Though I grew up believing in God, I thought that my situation was just a cosmic role of the dice.

My perspective started to change when I got involved in the youth group at my church. I grew really close to a great group of kids and made the decision to be baptized when I was eleven. About a year after that I came across a passage in the Bible that completely wrecked me--in a good way.

John Chapter 9 tells the account of Jesus's encounter with a blind man. When Jesus and his disciples come across the man, the disciples immediately ask why he was born blind. Because of the culture in which they live, they assume that the man was born that way as a punishment for either his sins or his parents' sins. Instead of confirming the man's worst fears, Jesus tells his disciples that the man was born blind so that God's power would be displayed in his life, and then Jesus goes on to heal the man.

The first time I read this passage I was stunned because it answered the questions that I had been asking my entire life. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know why I had been born with a heart defect. I wanted to know why I was stuck with this scar. I wanted to know why I was struggling with insecurity. Jesus's response to the man born blind amazed me because, for the first time, I understood that there could be a greater purpose for what I was going through.

I realized that my family wanted to keep telling people my story because that difficult time had strengthened their faith. I also recognized that I was more hardworking and more compassionate because of what I had been through than I otherwise would have been. In that moment, I was challenged to accept that God has a plan and that He does not make mistakes.

After those epiphanies had sunk in, the ending of John 9 knocked my socks off all over again. After the blind man is healed, he is relentlessly questioned by religious leaders who want to know who healed him and exactly how it was done. The man refuses to deny Jesus and is kicked out of the temple as a result. He was once stigmatized because of something outside of his control--his blindness, but he was ultimately excluded because of his choice to follow Jesus. It struck me that, as Christians, we are called live differently and love differently. It didn't matter if having heart surgery made me different because I was supposed to be acting differently anyway.

I realized that I didn't have to let myself be defined by my heart condition, my scar, whether or not I could play sports, or how well I did in school. I could choose to be defined by my identity in Jesus.