Straight or Crooked?

Garden Lily, Ginter Botanical Gardens, Richmond, VA

…the Lord sees not as man sees:

Man looks on the outward appearance, but

the Lord looks at the heart.

1 Samuel 16:7

As a child growing up, my mother would often say that I had the worst teeth on the planet.  “Crooked” does not even begin to describe the look of my permanent teeth.  I had buck teeth in a mouth that was barely large enough to accommodate a normal full set.  When I was thirteen years old, my dentist pulled four teeth to make some room, and sent me to an orthodontist.  I began the long process of braces that lasted until a month before I graduated from high school.  I emerged from five years of treatment with very straight teeth – a symbol of beauty in the United States.

Imagine my surprise when I recently read that some young Japanese women are paying a considerable fee to have a dentist transform their teeth from straight to crooked!  Called yaeba teeth (the Japanese word for “double tooth”), they are fang-y, pushed out incisors that often occur when the mouth is overcrowded.  Yaeba teeth are said to make girls “cute” - more approachable, less “perfect,” and will attract a suitable husband.  Cosmetic dentists glue artificial sections of tooth on to the natural tooth to give it a crooked appearance. The attachments are removable, in case this trend goes out of style.

Life’s school of hard knocks has taught me that trying to attract a life’s partner by changing who I really am to please them is a self-defeating strategy.  Each of us comes from the hand of our Creator as a unique human being – snaggle teeth, straight teeth, or somewhere in between.  I do not want to be loved for what I look like.  I want to be valued and cherished for who I am.  My teeth may not always be with me, but my character will define me for my entire life.