“The Ugly Duckling” is a familiar story about an ugly duck that grows into a beautiful swan. But, that’s just a “fairy-kind of tale.”

The reality is that some “ugly ducks” stay that way – but often only on the outside. From the inside out, they are just as beautiful as a swan.

Bethany Harry, a sophomore at Pike County High School, was born with a heart defect. By the time she was six years old, she had survived three major surgeries.

“The surgeries were like rebuilding a carburetor,” said Bethany’s mom, Martha Allen.

Bethany’s surgeries and the limitations that she had to endure because of her heart condition made her different from other children. She began to feel somewhat like the ugly duckling must have felt. But she had no illusions of turning into a swan. The limitations of her heart condition were not going away. More surgeries and, perhaps, even a heart transplant, could be in her future.

“Bethany was not bullied but she was treated differently,” Allen said. “It made her feel left out, much like children who are bullied because they are different. Because she was treated differently, she felt different.”

Allen wanted her daughter to know that being different did not mean that she was not special.

“Bethany was special, not because she was different but because God had a plan for her life,” Allen said.

God also had a plan for Allen’s life. God gave her the desire and the ability to tell about His love through the story of an ugly egg.

“God’s Special Plan for One Ugly Egg” is the story of an ugly egg that overcame the adversities of being an “ugly egg” to discover God’s special plan for him. That discovery healed his heart and changed his life, just as Bethany’s discovery that God has a plan for her life changed her outlook on life and spiritually healed her heart.

Allen asked Bethany to illustrate her book, “God’s Special Plan for One Ugly Egg” and Bethany eagerly agreed.

“I love to draw and I thought it would be cool to draw the story,” Bethany said. “We worked together. My mom would tell me the story and I would draw the pictures that I thought would also tell the story.”
Mom and daughter weren’t always “on the same page.” Allen would visualize the story a little differently from her daughter. However, Allen was telling the story with words and Bethany was telling it visually. As they worked together, things came together. The words and the drawings became as one.

“God’s Special Plan for One Ugly Egg” is different from most other books of its kind.

It’s a storybook and it’s also a coloring book. It’s interactive.

“We wanted children to read the book, to color the drawings and to draw their own feelings in the book,” Allen said.

Bethany illustrated the book is such a way that there is space for children to be “drawn in” to the story.

Mother and daughter said the beauty of the ugly egg is that God does have a plan for everyone and in God’s eyes there are no ugly eggs.

For more information about “God’s Special Plan for One Ugly Egg,” email Martha Allen and Bethany Harry at timothyroyallen@gmail.com or call 334-465-5074.