Warts and all...

So one of my favorite authors is a woman named Sarah Dessen.  She writes young adult fiction and most of her novels are a perfect blend of teen problems and life changing events with young love and lessons that apply to almost every teenage girl.  You can't help not falling in love with every book this woman writes.  She just had this way of making magic.  So my first piece of advice is to go out and buy one of her books.  But I just finished reading her newest book called, "What Happened to Goodbye?"  Like all of Sarah Dessen's novels I fell in love with it immediately.  Usually when I find quotes I like in a book I will mark the page and come back to them later.  There was a part of this book that I took to heart and felt it was an important thing to apply.  (I'm going to copy this part right out of the book.)
 ****This is from Sarah Dessen's novel "What Happened To Goodbye"...I didn't write this.****

"'You said 'warts and all'. Didn't you?'
'Um, yeah.' I replied.  'What, you don't know that expression?'
'No, I do.'..then took his left hand off the steering wheel, turning it over to expose the black, tattooed circle there.  'It's where this comes from, actually
....
'During the week, I stayed with this woman who kept a few kids at her house, Eva...Eva was just , like, straight up awesome.  She was really tall and broad, with a huge belly laugh.  She smelled like pancakes.  And had this wart.  A huge one, like something you'd see on a witch or something.  Right here.' He put his index finger in the center of the tattoo, pressing down.  'We were, like fascinated and grossed out by it at the same time.  And she always made a point of letting us look at it.  She wasn't embarrassed at all.  Said if we loved her, we loved it, too.  It was part of the package.'"

-Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye

So when I read that part of the book I turned the corner down and remembered it.  See when I was in first grade I had a real small wart on my knee, for almost four years I had to go once a month and get them frozen off.  Now I have twenty two scars all over both of my knees.  I had never heard the saying, "Warts and all"  but when I first read it I smiled and looked down at my knee, and at every other scar on my body from the many times I have fallen down, physical and emotional scars.  I started to think about the "Warts" that everybody has.  Not necessarily warts like the ones on my knee, but things that aren't the most beautiful things about us.  The faults and flaws that everybody has, because like I have said, no one is perfect.  We all have metaphorical warts, things that we do, have done, or habits that we have fallen into that aren't pleasing the other people.  Whether it be the people that love us or the people that judge us, or even the people that judge us and love us.  But if we truly love that other person, and if they truly love us, they choose to look past those "warts".  They will love us in spite of all the stupid things that we do or have done.  So I challenge you, to look at those people when their "Warts" flare up.  When they do the one thing that really makes you made.  Or the quality you don't find most attractive arises, Or there is something about you that just annoys you.  To look past it, knowing that that person's flaw, is a part of the person that you love.  You can't change them or make them different.  Why would you want you?  If you did then they really wouldn't be the person that you love would they?  And remember that you have warts too, things others don't particularly find attractive.  But they love you anyway.   I guess what I am saying is to remember that we all have warts...but we need to love each other..."warts and all".
love, warty syd :) 

P.S.  If you guys want to read more of Sarah Dessen's books, which I highly recommend the link to her website is below where you can read the synopsis of all of her books. :) Enjoy :)

http://sarahdessen.com/books/