Article August 30, 2004 Issue

'He had a lot of love'

By Daniel Pérez Lizama——Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

By the time I was 17, my face had been covered with severe acne for as long as I could remember. It was so bad that people made jokes about it, and I didn't even like to leave the house.

That year I went to Mexico City to stay a week or two with a couple, who were close family friends. I knew that my friend (I'll call him Michael) and his wife belonged to a different religion from mine, and that Michael had a special job connected with his church. During my first few days in their home, I realized that his profession was healing people—he was a Christian Science practitioner. He read the Bible a couple of hours each day, and he spent a lot of time answering letters and phone calls from people asking for help. I began to wonder if he could help me.

For the previous six years, my family had taken me to the best doctors and skin specialists in Mérida where we lived. I also took pills and applied the harsh medications that the doctors prescribed, but the acne just became worse. The doctors told me that even if my skin improved, my face would be badly scarred and would require surgery. I felt that I looked like a monster. But somehow I knew that my friend Michael never looked at me that way. He was seeing something more about me than I did.

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