My Story

Robert Morris

Every person has a story worth telling, and mine began even before I was born. When my mother was 16 years old, her father—a preacher named Robert—was shot and killed. Years later, when my parents were choosing a name for me, they named me after him and dedicated me to God to be a preacher. Their prayer was that I would carry on the ministry my grandfather never had a chance to complete. It would take a move of the Holy Spirit for this to become a reality.

Growing up, I was very accident-prone. When I was just three years old, I was riding my tricycle and attempted to negotiate a turn, but I went into a ravine instead. My two front teeth dug into my bottom lip and had to be removed surgically. About a year later, doctors removed some scar tissue, but I never felt like they removed enough. (To this day, I can still feel some scar tissue in my lip.) I remember looking in the mirror as a little boy and thinking,You have the biggest bottom lip of any person I’ve ever seen! This thought was reinforced when people would comment about my lips, saying, “Your bottom lip is kind of big, isn’t it?” When I joined the school band, the director looked at me and said, “You need to play the trombone because you’ve got big lips.” I think he was trying to be complimentary, but to me, he was just another person saying, “Boy, you are one freaky-looking kid!” There was a man in our church who played the trombone, and he had huge lips too. I thought,If I play the trombone, my lips are just going to get bigger, and one day I’m going to stick my head out the window of the car, and my lips are going to beat me to death. I decided I didn’t want to play the trombone. I chose to play the saxophone instead because I could pull my lips in. I thought this would make them a little smaller, but it never worked.

I was also areally skinny kid. I never thought I looked normal. Whenever I looked at other people, I thought,There’s a normal looking person. I’m just goofy-looking and skinny. It’s why I hated Physical Education. My legs were so skinny, and the gym shorts we wore only brought more attention to them. The label inside read, “One size fits all,” but it was a lie. I remember coming out of the locker room one day, and one of the bigger and stronger students shouted out in front of everyone, “Hey Robert, let me help you. You got a string hanging off your shorts . . . Oh, I'm sorry. That’s your leg.”

As I grew up, I thought,I look different from everyone. I’m awkward. And to top it off, I had a speech impediment. I hadn’t learned to pronounce my Rs, and when your name is “Wobewt Mowwis,” you’re doomed! On the first day of school, the kids asked, “What’s your name?” When I told them, they all laughed. I went straight home and told my parents I wasnever going to school again. They explained to me why I had to go and said they would send me to speech therapy.