listen to your life {July lessons in listening}

Let life shape itself.

This refrain peppers the pages of Marlena di Blasi’s latest book, Antonia and Her Daughters.  I read di Blasi as much for her pithy quotes and insight into human nature as for her mouth-watering descriptions of Italian food and life.  

Curled up under a light blanket in my dark room, savoring my tiny oasis of calm in the middle of the afternoon, I’m pondering di Blasi’s words, thinking now about life, about observation, about allowing the shape of a day to be determined by forces outside oneself, not by one’s own will.  

This is hard for me.

I’d rather set out a schedule with lines and boxes, fill in each half-hour slot carefully, stick to the plan.  I like knowing what’s coming, the security of preparing in advance so I can rise to the occasion, feel the thrill of success.  I like having all my ducks in a row, how it feels to keep all the balls spinning briskly in mid-air without dropping a single one.  I hate that.  Dropping one.

This sort of square life might be safe, but I’m discovering it lacks a certain… zest.  The element of surprise, maybe?  I’m slowly realizing that surprise is always part of a day;   it’s my choice to welcome it or stubbornly push it away which determines whether the surprise adds to my pleasure in the day, or not.  

Coming upon my daughter sitting on the wooden plank bridge across our backyard water channel, blissfully engaged in reaching her little arm into the cool milky water, scrounging a fistful of mud from the bottom of the trench, pulling it up dripping to smear its cool silkiness over her bare skin… 

How do I react?  Do I scream and scold and whisk her off to the bathroom for a shower, chastise her for getting dirty, for caking her dimpled legs with mud, smearing it over her face?  

Or do I stop, notice the light on the back of her neck, see the shimmer of her fountain of hair, take in her quiet absorption, the way she calmly soothes herself with the elemental coolness of water and dirt against her skin?  

Do I receive the sight of her as a gift, let life shape itself, take what’s given?  Or do I push it away, rigidly insisting on my own ideas of what’s good in a day?

I’m learning.  Slowly.

These lessons in listening, this year of slowing down, of giving myself permission to rest, to be still, to think, to write, to not pursue people unless the fit takes me… these months are changing me, stretching me.  I’ve been like dough that needed time to rise before it can be deflated and stretched over waiting pans.  I’ve needed rising time.  And I’m being kneaded, gently but firmly, and stretched, sometimes to tearing point, over a waiting receptacle which, when I first look at it, I think I will never be able to fit.  

Three children.  A dog.  Chickens.  Guests.  A garden.  A borrowed house.  A village life in Central Asia.  Three foreign languages.  Intermittent running water, sporadic power cuts.  If you had shown me my now-life ten years ago, I would have said, I’ll never be able to fit that.  I’ll never stretch that far.  

Let life shape itself.

Our latest additions!  In for a penny, in for a pound...

I would change di Blasi’s mantra slightly.  I would say, Listen.  Listen to your life.  Let God shape the day, the moment, the hour.  

I’m beginning to hear God’s voice in the surprises.  Things I would have pushed away before, now I’m beginning to smile instead, when I see them.  

The knock of a stranger on my gate. 

Before this listening, before this expanding and growing, before this stretching, it would have been ::sigh::  Not now!  I feel invaded!  I have things to do!  Please, go away… These feelings promptly followed by a flood of guilt, because, after all, am I not here for exactly this, these people, these women?  Am I not called to spill out my life for that knock on the gate?  

Now, sometimes, more often than before, I can meet the knock with calm, sometimes even with pleasure.  It’s ok.  There’s fresh bread.  A pitcher of cold tea.  Sweet peas.  We’ll be fine.  Come in, come in, come inside, sit down a few minutes. 

Lord, order my day.  Shape my life.

This simple prayer has changed my outlook.  I am learning how to stop myself on the point of freaking out and say to my rising panic, Listen.  

I’m learning to notice the afternoon sunlight on the back of my tiny daughter’s neck.  To relish the softness of our (initially unwanted) dog’s coat, the satiny bits behind her ears.  (Yes, surprise - our dog is a “her”!)  I’m learning to expect the inevitable knock at the gate and sometimes feel a thrill, instead of a surge of dread.  To go out on the street after dinner for no other reason than to open my heart to the dusty golden sunset and the silhouettes of my neighbors and their children playing.  

Why haven’t I lived like this for years? I find myself wondering.  This, exactly this, letting life shape itself, is the way to find joy.  

And to be honest, every day is not this way, this listening, receiving, peace-filled, stretched-and-open way.  It comes in fits and starts.  When I’m tired or hungry or at the end of an especially trying day, with intermittent water and even less patience, I am not gracious. I long to grow roots deep enough to always reach that Living Water.  I long for my heart’s cup to always brim with the "Sweet Water" of Calvary love, like Amy Carmichael says, so that no matter how sudden the jolt to my cup, no bitter drops spill out.   

Festina lente.  Make haste slowly.  The light won’t wait, urges Marlena.  

I’m making haste slowly.  I’m learning to listen to my life, to bend my rigidity in order not to miss the beauty of the shifting light.  

The light won’t wait, you know.

Welcoming the moments lets joy flood in.

How do you handle unexpected interruptions?  If you tried praying “Lord, order my day” each morning, how do you think it would change your outlook?

{To listen to the song I wrote about Amy Carmichael's quote, called "Sweet Water", click here...}

for the days when you feel like a failure {thoughts from a recovering perfectionist}

Just now, I turned around and walked out of my kitchen, leaving behind a mountain of dirty dishes and my second enormous batch of apricot jam in two days.  I just can’t face the stickiness yet, which is why I’m sitting writing this post.

I’ll just be honest.  I don’t like talking about my bad days.  (Notice there aren't any pictures of my sticky kitchen in this post... I don't like showing you my messes, either!)  I guess I want you all to think I’m the one with the answers, the one you can come to when you need encouragement and wisdom… Being honest about my failures - here - feels like a big risk for me, because I’m one of those people who compulsively likes to look like I have my act together. 

But the truth is?  I don’t.  Have my act together.  At all.  

And today?  I’m feeling like a total [gulp] failure.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

I really don’t like that word, that f-word.  I hate thinking about it, I hate feeling it, I recoil and cringe whenever anyone else has to use it.  

But since I’m being honest, there’s a moment or two every day (ok, a lot of moments) when I’m flailing wildly, grasping at straws, yelling desperately at Jesus for an emergency injection of patience or wisdom or love for someone proving particularly un-lovable at that moment.

I’m slowly learning the art of giving grace to myself, of appropriating every day the incredible endless grace I’ve already received in Christ.  I want to let that river of grace flow freely in my life, drink from it all the time.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

But… I still define my own “failures”.  I set my bar high, jump with all my strength - and don’t always hit my own mark. 

The low point of today’s “failures”?  My sweet baby girl followed her brothers out our front gate, promptly tripped and fell and cut her cheek on a sharp stone.  Even though I know in my brain that accidents can and do happen to every kid at some point, I still feel in my heart like a woefully negligent mother.  Somehow the sight of blood seems so much worse when it’s a little girl after two rough-and-tumble boys. :(

A bandaid and some ice cubes and she was back to normal, running around unfazed, but I sat there trying to push away horrible visions of her wedding day in a lovely white veil, trying unsuccessfully to cover up a scar on her cheek with make-up… (Yes, my mind leaps frantically ahead like this!  Doesn’t yours?)

The bottom line is (in my own opinion) I “failed” to protect my child.  I know it’s impossible for a parent to protect their child all the time from everything, but I still require it of myself.  Hmm.  Does that strike you as odd?

photo credit: I. Winsley

There are other felt “failures” too, staring me in the face.  I feel like I’m failing to meet my second son’s emotional needs, and my first son’s creative ones.  Today we ate the same boring food for lunch and dinner because the jam took over the kitchen.  Even with a house helper (who cut up all the apricots for the jam this morning), I still can’t make everything happen on time, and excellently. 

Every day, I desperately try to cover up, push away, deny, rise above, overcome the dreadfully uncomfortable fact that I. am. not. perfect. 

But today, I couldn’t escape it.  

I know we all get made perfect in heaven, but today that perfection felt eighty years away, and meanwhile my floors are gritty and my toilet bowl desperately needs to be scrubbed.

I feel like Jesus is giving me a test, right now, as I sit here gasping in front of my computer screen, ignoring my sticky kitchen and my kids who need their teeth brushed:  

Will you finally depend on My strength, now that yours has run out?

“I’m trying!” I want to shout.  “I really am, but do please tell me how I am supposed to get all of this done!  My daughter just peed all over the floor and is currently running around the house with nothing on her bottom half!  The kitchen is covered in sticky!  I’m exhausted and cranky and sick of potty-training a stubborn 20-month-old!  I’m tired of gardening and canning and all the other work that goes along with this rural, primitive life!  I’m just tired!  Period!”

I can dimly see Jesus, vague in the distance beyond my screen.  He’s nodding slowly.  Smiling a little.  Patiently waiting for my diatribe to finish.  

I’m not done yet.  “I’ve had to cancel three Skype meetings in two days,” jabbing the words at Him with my finger, “which I was really looking forward to, but because of our incredibly unreliable Internet - fast, slow, up, down - those calls are on hold indefinitely, and I am so frustrated.  I could really have used the encouragement this week, too.”

He’s still nodding, looking at me.  Not turning away.  Holding me with His eyes.

“The parenting never ends, the housework never ends, the laundry never ends, the stress never ends, my own pressure to meet every need excellently all the time, to cook food my kids want to eat for every meal - it never ends!  When can I get off this ridiculous hamster wheel?” I splutter, stabbing my open palms in his direction.  (I don’t add the rest of the truth He already knows: that the hamster wheel is of my own making.)

Eventually, I run out of steam.  I stop for breath.  I let the pause lengthen, wait to see what He has to say.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

For a minute, He doesn’t say anything.  

I start thinking of my sink full of dirty dishes and the mountain of unfolded laundry sprawling all over the veranda table.

Finally, He says just one simple phrase, quietly.

“Come to me.”  Silence.  I don’t know what to say.

After a minute He repeats it again, hands held out.

“Come.  To me.”

I gaze at Him, almost with disbelief.  I know what He’s inviting me to do, but my gut just can’t believe it’s that easy.  What about all my housework?  What about my failures?  Am I supposed to just leave it all behind?  Ok then, tell me who will do all this stuff?  Because it has to get done sometime!

“Come to Me, and rest,” He’s beckoning.  Almost beseeching.  As if He’s longing to save me from myself.

I hesitate.

I close my eyes.  

I picture myself getting off the wheel, walking forward slowly, then more and more quickly towards His open arms.  I picture Jesus enfolding me; I breathe in His scent of cedar wood shavings and sweat and sunshine.  I take a deep breath in, and let it out.  In.  Out.  Deep, slow breaths.  

“I know I just need to come to you straightaway when I feel overwhelmed,” I admit, my head still burrowed into His chest, “but some days it’s just too overwhelming and I’m just too flipped out.”

“I know.”  Jesus is rubbing my back with a warm, comforting hand.  “Believe me, I’ve felt everything you’re feeling: overwhelmed, exhausted, pressed in upon.  Imagine crowds and crowds of needy people, and you have the power to heal and help them all, and the daylight hours only last so long, and you also have a responsibility to teach and train twelve hand-picked men in the ways and truths of God… Remember, I had all the same physical limits you have.  But - I had the same Holy Spirit, too.”  

I nod, still nestled against Him.  I could stay there forever.

“I know the work never ends,” He whispers in my ear.  “But - what about the joys?”

As I type the word “joys”, Ruby is sitting next to me on the couch, reaching her little fingers into the armhole of my sleeveless shirt to tickle me.  She grins, then chuckles, showing her dimple.  Her soft, round belly peeps out from under her nightshirt.  She smells of toothpaste.  She is utterly adorable.

photo credit: I. Winsley

Two minutes ago, my six-year-old came to find me, toothbrush in mouth - obviously my wonderful husband is picking up the bedtime slack tonight, while I write this - to sing me a random song he just made up: “Luggage in the morning / Luggage in the afternoon / Luggage in the evening, too…”  

When I asked quizzically, “Why luggage?” he replied, with typical logic, “Well, someone’s always got luggage somewhere… in the airport, in taxis…”  

photo credit: I. Winsley

Just now, as I was tucking my four-year-old into bed, he said to me, “Mom, I know why you call us ‘honey’…” he broke into a grin, around his thumb in his mouth, “because we’re soooo sweet!”  I laughed and tickled him and he chuckled and burrowed into his pillow with his blanket.  

I left their room with a lighter heart. 

Joys, indeed.  With joys like these coming my way daily, can’t I can weather a bit of “failure”?  Let’s re-define “failure” anyway.  Let’s quit setting these high bars for ourselves, since Jesus has already done all that is necessary.  My measuring stick is small, self-imposed and most of the time wrong.

Besides, it’s not about us anyway, or what we can do.  

It’s all about Him - and what He’s already done.

Come to Me, and rest.

Take My yoke upon you.  Be Martha, if you must, but be Martha with a Mary heart.  Never stop sitting at my feet.  Never stop depending on Me.  

Keep drawing out of my well, deeper, deeper, all the strength and patience and stamina you need.  I never run out of joy, or courage, or peace, or long-suffering.  

A good friend of mine (a fellow recovering perfectionist) gave me a mantra to remember, whenever I’m pushing myself too hard, not giving myself enough grace: 

I can’t do it.

He can.  

I think I’ll let Him.

When have you felt like a failure recently?  How did you deal with it?  What does it take to make you run to Jesus and give up striving on your own strength?

how to ensure your words endure {June lessons in listening}

{My one word for 2014 is "listen"... Each month I'm posting the lessons I'm learning - find the rest of my posts on listening here!}

As a writer and an artist, I want to be heard.  I long for none of my words to fall to the ground.  

But as a human, I know that’s impossible.  The limitations of my sin nature, my personality, my background and my experiences ensure that at least some, possibly all, of my own words will eventually disappear. 

I’m still mulling over Mark Buchanan’s thoughtful and refreshing book The Rest of God.  He describes his life as an author, pastor, and speaker, and admits his own similar desire for his words to endure.  

“Either God, God alone, keeps our words from falling and scatters them wide,” observes Buchanan, “or else there is nothing in them worth keeping and scattering in the first place.  Our concern, our responsibility, is simply to hear and heed God…”

John’s gospel begins, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory…full of grace and truth” (emphasis mine).

The only Person whose words are sure to endure is the Living Word Himself.  So, it follows that the only way for me to ensure what I say endures is to make my words the words of God.   

“Our speaking comes out of our listening,” Buchanan continues.  “What we say comes out of what we hear. We have to be people who listen, day and night, to God.  Our utterances ought to be as Jesus’s were: an echoing of the Father, an imitation of him….”

That’s a tall order.  When I read those words for the first time, my heart sank.  Given that I am not Jesus, that feels pretty much impossible!

But the word “echo” stood out to me: I might not be Jesus, but I can surely echo Him.  I can repeat back - pass on - the words I hear from Him in my own heart, the words I read from Him in the Bible, the things He shows me through experience and circumstance.  And if hearing God happens best when I am still, then the practices of Sabbath and listening are essentially connected. 

God is always speaking.

The Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God… Day to day pours out speech… Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

God is always speaking, but we’re not always listening.  

“There are so many voices,” says Buchanan.  “And there is such little time to listen, to truly listen: to winnow and test it all, to heed and reflect and respond...

“Sabbath is when we stop.  We slow down.  We play, we rest, we dream, we wonder.  We cease from that which is necessary and turn to that which gives life.  And in the hush that descends, we listen.”

The times when I can hear most clearly are times of stillness and quietness: in other words, when I’m cultivating a Sabbath heart. 

“God isn’t more likely to speak on your Sabbath than on any other day,” says Buchanan, “but you are more likely to listen.”

On the day the apostle John saw the Voice and the vision which became the book of Revelation, there are two key contextual details which Buchanan highlights: 

“One, he was in exile on Patmos.  He was, in other words, under an enforced silence and aloneness, a season of inactivity.  Two, it was Sunday, the Lord’s Day.  It was his Sabbath.  These conditions - the silence, the aloneness, the stillness, the Sabbath - might be beside the point.  Then again, they might just be the point.  It’s possible that they are mentioned because they form the necessary backdrop for true listening.”

~Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God, ch 12 "Listen: Stopping to Hear God"

It is only when we’ve first heard from God ourselves that we have something worth hearing to offer to our listeners.  

In one of Ann Voskamp’s recent posts, she urges her readers to take time every day.  She says, 

“Daily disciplines are doors to full freedom.

“Everyday take time. Everyday take time to feel the sun and the wind and the rain and feel that you are loved — and then let your life overflow with that love so that a thousand others feel that love. 

“Everyday take time to live loved — and live so others feel loved. 

“Everyday take time. Time is there for the taking. For the unwrapping.”

This daily unwrapping of the gift of time, the gift of Sabbath rest, frees us to truly listen, first to God and then to others.  

Ann continues, “Give someone the gift of listening… linger and look into their eyes and really listen and this is free and nobody can buy it and what is better than paying attention to someone with all of you fully present?”

Give yourself permission to receive God’s gift of Sabbath rest - not just the 24 hours once a week when you stop and play and revive your soul - but every day.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

Take time every day to rest, to still your soul and listen.  

In learning to be still enough to hear God, we will learn how to be still enough to listen, truly listen, to others.

photo credits: I. Winsley

of Sparkly Green Earrings, and grace for recovering perfectionists

Photo credit: William Broughton, age 6

I hate nits.  

I’ve had them one time, and that was one time too many.  

So, just now, I shuddered appreciatively and indulged in an empathetic skin-crawl while reading the chapter called “Nitpicking” in Melanie Shankle’s honest, hilarious book on motherhood, Sparkly Green Earrings.  

Yesterday at nap time I raced through the first 10 chapters, foregoing my doze to gobble up just one more - and then one more - hilarious anecdote about sleep deprivation, potty training, and projectile vomiting.

But in Chapter 17, I found the gem of the book, for me.  The nugget of truth worth the price of the book.  The pearl of wisdom which made me stop in my tracks, switch off my Kindle, lay it on the bedside table, close my eyes, snuggle deep under my blanket, and pray, 

Lord, this is me.  This is SO me.  Help!

Here’s how Melanie ends Chapter 17:

“I think I’d been living under the illusion that I could give Caroline a perfect childhood.  But perfect doesn’t exist in our world. (Oh, how I wish it did!) 

“I can give her love, I can give her laughter, I can instill values and morals in her, I can teach her about Jesus and how he loves her more than she knows, and I can hopefully give her more good memories than bad.

“And I can pick the nits out of her hair, one little larva at a time.

“But I can’t give her perfection, because I’m fresh out. 

“That’s where the grace of God enters, and I exit quietly through the back door, allowing him to fill in the gaps.”

-Melanie Shankle, Sparkly Green Earrings (emphasis mine)

That’s Melanie.  Straight up.  No beating around the bush.  Gut level.  

“I can’t give her perfection, because I’m fresh out.” 

Wham.

Reading those words felt like a punch in the stomach, and also at the same time like a burden lifting off.  

Yes.  That is totally true of me, I thought.  Bravely, I might add.  (For a recovering perfectionist, that’s a big admission.) 

I am fresh out of perfection, much as I try desperately to pretend otherwise every. single. day.  

Whew!  Who needs to try anymore?  I’m done.  I’m done pretending to be perfect, because everyone - including me - knows it’s a big sham.  

And then that beautiful image, the one that had me crawling under my blanket with my eyes closed to savor the comfort:

“That’s where the grace of God enters and I exit quietly through the back door, allowing him to fill in the gaps.”

Yes.  

YES.  

The relief of that picture, an invitation to let go of my striving to be the perfect mother, and just quietly slip out the back door. 

The delightful, dependable ability of God to fill in all the gaps - everything I’ve left undone, all my mistakes, all the things I agonize over not being able to give my children.  

So thank you, Melanie, for putting it all out there, and for expressing truths we all feel but sometimes can’t quite wrap words around.  

And Lord…

Please give me grace, every day, to accept the reality of my limitations.  Help me learn how to rejoice in them, even though right now they make me cringe!

Free me from pride and the desperate need to measure up, so I can live joyfully in your strength, not mine.  

And please fill in all the gaps for my kids, so they learn how to rely on you, too.  

for anyone who's had a bad hair day...

Do you ever have trouble believing that God really is in charge of everything?  Each detail of our lives is orchestrated by Him, His providence extends to every blade of grass and every hair on our heads… do you ever find that hard to swallow?

That not only does He hold galaxies in space which He flung there with the Word of His mouth, but He has the days of our lives planned down to the minute, and knows what each day will hold before we’re even born...

Sometimes I have trouble really believing this.  God knows this about me.  Which is why He gives me example after example in my own life (if I take the time to pay attention) of how closely He’s paying attention to the details...

Case in point: my latest haircut.

My hair had grown long.  I mean the kind of long where it’s not just split ends that are the problem.  It was to the stage where I couldn’t wear it down in any way that looked nice, it was too much hair to wear up, so it basically stayed in a low ponytail or French braid all. the. time.  (My last haircut was in New Zealand just before Ruby was born, and she’s 15 months old, so that tells you how long it’s been!)  

Why did I let it go this long, you ask?  

Well… (as any mother of young kids can attest) creating a window of daytime free from kids and house is a tremendous challenge.  And then so many other tantalizing activities beckon when I do get an hour of childcare arranged: shopping, exercising, writing, time with the Lord, time with a girlfriend, more shopping…

Also, I have yet to find someone in our area who can cut my hair the way I want.  (My husband is under the impression that this state of affairs actually extends to the boundaries of the known world, since every hair-cut I get, whether in the States, New Zealand or Central Asia, no matter how pricey or posh, leaves me feeling slightly disappointed...) 

All I really want - is this too much to ask? - is a basic layered cut, rounded on the bottom (NOT square on the sides or pointed in the middle), the shortest layer brushing my cheekbones, and the longest layer brushing my shoulders.  With these instructions given, I have received every sort of layered look you can imagine: from a posh square-cornered business-woman look you have to blow dry straight every morning with a round brush, to a choppy, sloppy bed-head look at its best after a week of no washing.

A year and a half ago here in Central Asia I got a haircut from a person on our street, recommended to me by several neighbor ladies (whose haircuts looked quite nice, by the way).  This guy did a fairly decent job the first time, other than leaving a sort of rat-tail in the bottom layer - which I did manage to fix at home, even though the placement of the rat-tail in the exact center of my back gave me a crick in my neck just trying to see it, let alone cut it… I really do not know how people manage to successfully cut their own hair. 

So, with my history of let-downs, I understandably cringe at the thought of getting my hair cut, and tend to take the easy way out (just don’t cut it) until I absolutely can’t stand it anymore.  

Well, last week, the stars finally aligned, and since I knew they wouldn’t stay aligned for long, I decided out of desperation to just go to the guy down the street again.  

So I tugged a hat over my long locks, and trudged down the street reviewing my choices for the word “layers” from the three languages we mix together every day.  The clearest word I know is the term for “stories” like on a building or a cake, which I’m not sure really gets the point across for hair.  (After every hair-cut I go home vowing to study more hair-cut words, but once the pressure is off I procrastinate and the learning urgency evaporates - until I’m en route to my next hair-cut, when I rue my laziness and my subsequently inadequate vocabulary…)

After waiting through two young blokes before me, it was finally my turn.  I sat down in the chair under the bare light bulb, submitted to a towel around my neck and the black super-hero cape around my shoulders, and watched as he began to snip off my dead ends.  I wasn’t sure how much to hope for.  I braced myself for the worst, while at the same time wistfully hoping that, against all odds, this would be the magic hair cut, the best I’d ever had...  

I was definitely not expecting what I ended up with: a sort of Russian shag-mullet, with a very short bushy top, longish pieces on the sides, and some very thinned stringy wisps on the bottom which still fell considerably past my shoulders. 

It was awful.  

I started sensing it was going to be awful when, after he finished trimming my ends (without really taking off any length), he picked up the entire top half of my hair, held it straight above my head, and chopped off about 4 inches at once.  

I kind of gasped… but he kept snipping away busily, and seemed to be going around again, so I didn’t say anything and continued hoping it wound’t be too bad.  Unfortunately, my hopes turned out to be unfounded...

It was just awful.

Still, at the place, I reserved judgment.  I did have some layers framing my face in the mirror, and I was pleased the length and weight were mostly gone.  He had been complimenting me on my hair as he snipped away (which would have been nice had he not been in the process of butchering it).  So I thanked him and paid him generously for his time, since it had taken over an hour.  

Then I came home.  I looked in the mirror by the front door, and… my hair looked like it had been hacked with a kitchen knife.  The layers were wildly spread - too short and bushy on top, too long and thin underneath, flat in the middle - and all the copious thinning and feathering made the ends stick out in all directions.  

I stubbornly stayed positive, kept my winter hat on, made pizza for dinner, and prayed it would look better after a shower in the morning and some scrunching with gel.

It didn’t.  The top fro-ed out around my head like a lion’s mane, and the feathery bottom layers clung to my shoulders like an 80’s mullet.  I did the best I could with a stretchy headband on top, but it needed three or four bobby pins to tie down all the sticky-outy ends, and when in desperation I braided the bottom, I actually had a legitimate rat-tail.  (Ugh!)

I had a good cry in front of the mirror (it didn’t help that I started my period in the middle of the night), put my hat back on again, and went to meet a friend for morning tea.  Thank God women everywhere can relate to bad hair days!  My friend was very sympathetic and encouraging, and we had a nice time wandering around the few shops in the center of her town...  

It was while in one of these shops, browsing amongst the usual junk (gaudy costume jewelry, chintzy purses, faux-leather wallets, Mardigras masks), that I found the headbands.  

Now, I am not a headband person.  Most are so tight they give me a headache, and I don’t really enjoy the way my high forehead tends to bulge and shine if I pull my hair straight back.  Thin headbands create dog-ears of hair on the sides which flop forward in a cocker-spaniel-esque way, and fat stretchy headbands tend to slide backwards off my head unless stabbed with bobby pins in multiple places, and then they leave a weird kink under the back of my hair.  

But the headbands I found that morning were none of those things.  They were broad, lightweight, loose and flexible when I stretched them.  Each was covered with a wider band of suede fabric in colors that were actually tasteful - black, muted brown, sky blue...  And they were only $1.50 each.  

I bought the brown one and the blue one, and walked out of the store feeling completely different.

It wasn’t just the headbands.  My hair didn’t look any different.  It was just that I had remembered:

God cares about things like bad hair days.  

Look!  On the very morning after my bad haircut, in a shop I’d never been in before, He planted tasteful, comfortable headbands in colors I actually wear.  (Those of you living near a Walmart might not be able to appreciate the rarity in this part of the world of discovering ANY clothing item or accessory with that combination of characteristics…)  

God did it.  

That’s the kind of God He is.  

The next day was Sunday, and after not washing my hair for a couple days, it had calmed down somewhat.  I wet it slightly in the shower, scrunched it with my fingers, added some gel and one of my new headbands, and - surprise, surprise - it actually looked halfway decent!  (Well, other than the fact that the bottom layers are still hopelessly thin and straggly, the back still has no body, and the overall shape still looks uncomfortably 80s-rock-star-esque...)

After living with my new look for several days now, I still cringe slightly when I glance in the mirror but I no longer feel like groaning or retching...

(OK - sigh… I'm going to show you some photos, 

and I can hear you all say, "That's not so bad!"

Keep in mind, these are the "AFTER-I-figured-it-out-a-litle" pics…}

Why does hair matter so much to women?  God says it’s our glory, and that it’s given to us as a covering… in the context of Hebrew women, that meant modesty in a church setting, since women were required to cover their heads.  But I suppose in a broader sense, hair for women might be a symbol of our femininity?  

At a deep level, every woman longs to know she is beautiful.  I really believe a desire to be lovely is hardwired into the hearts of little girls from the time they’re born.

Take my daughter.  Whenever I have trouble doing her hair in the mornings, all I have to say is, “Daddy will think you are so beautiful!” and she sits still.  As soon as I’m finished, she toddles straight to Daddy and looks up at him with this hopeful, wistful expression on her little face.  He never fails to notice she’s had her hair done, and says, “Oh, Ruby, you look so beautiful today!”  And she preens and smiles and touches her hair gently, and rubs her hand down her shirt, and looks back up at him and beams and shows her dimple.  She positively blossoms under his praise.  

Girls need to know they’re beautiful.  

And - guess what?  The God Who created us that way cares about the details of our lives.  The God who makes no two blades of grass or snowflakes alike cares about whether or not I like my haircut!  

He knows how limited this context is that He’s put me in, how few options I have here for looking beautiful.  He knows I still want to look nice and feel pretty.  

And even though He let me get the worst haircut I’ve ever had, the next day He handed me two perfect accessories and said, 

“See?  I haven’t forgotten about you.  And don’t forget - hair does grow, you know…”

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? 

And not one of them is forgotten before God. 

Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 

Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows!”

Luke 12:6-7

(photo credits: William Broughton, age 6)