Having nice hair

The other day I went to Calypso (a hippie-esque Caribbean style fast food joint), one of my favorite places to eat, and as the girl was ringing up my order to-go she looked at me very thoughtfully and paused and then said, "I really like your hair, it's so pretty."  That's not the first time I had heard someone say that, in fact because I heard it so often I took quite some time and pride in styling my hair before going out.  My hair did look great, even on days where I just effortlessly let it air dry straight from the shower.  But most of the time, I MADE sure it looked great, I waved it and put Moroccan oil on it for that matted silky shine, and kept it smelling like sweet vanilla spices (my favorite scent).  My hair along with my teeth, my stomach, and my skin were all very well maintained with a routine.  A rigid routine that said "ok God, I'm ready to give you everything and do whatever you tell me to, so long as it doesn't interfere with me having nice hair."  Ridiculous, I know.   But that's essentially what my actions were saying. I wanted to follow Christ, to take up my cross, and bleed the way He bled for me, all the while maintaining my beautiful mane.  

       Horses are one of the most magical creatures I have ever seen and touched.  They have a wild essence about them that stirs a childlike wonder in me.  I see their eyes and it's like they are staring into me, past my hair and teeth and stomach and skin and right into the beating, hurting heart of mine that desires freedom.  Horses seem like they understand freedom, though the ones I've come across are fenced in, they still carry an air of carelessness about them that drives me to joy when I see one.  They are the epitome of beautiful, effortless and wondrous beauty.  They remind me that God knows what beauty is.  He created everything we find to be awe-strikingly beautiful; the waves at the end of a horizon, the embrace of two lovers at an airport, wildflowers in the hands of a child, and the bright coruscating sky of an early morning.  Do you know what's not beautiful?  Botox induced faces, disproportional lip injections, girls that are so calorie strict they become malnourished, and guys that need sex and affection from girls they don't intend to love back.  All of these end emotionally and physically ugly.   Things may appear beautiful for a while, but when the grasp for beauty lies outside the hands of Him who illustrates every beautiful masterpiece, it inevitably crumbles and turns to dust.  It is like trying to operate a very intricate machine without the manual, we press buttons we think are right when they actually lead to further complications.  Our efforts at maintaining our shiny selves shatters in our very hands because we were designed to be beautiful only in our continual pointing to the author of design.  We are like sunflowers thriving as we turn our gaze upon the Sun and receive the nourishment and enjoyment of brilliance.  

       Yet beauty is so appealing to us.  Whether it is the sight of a beautiful woman to a man, a beautiful man to a woman, a lustrous vanilla-scented mane, flawless symmetrical facial features, or washboard abs.  In essence these are not bad things to want or have, but when they wrap around our hearts as things we MUST have (and this includes anything: a career, a title, or any goal, even having children) they cross over into that which will eventually crush us. They take our gaze away from the very thing that makes us beautiful; the Son.  When a sunflower does not receive Light, it eventually withers and dies no matter how beautiful it is, it's beauty and very life DEPEND on having light (and compost and water).  However no sunflower can create their own pseudo light.  They can't produce water for themselves, and they certainly have no access to their own compost.  A sunflower requires care that is given apart from themselves.  Who better to take care of them than a person who wants to grow and harvest beautiful sunflowers?  God desires to see his children grow and bloom.  (Jeremiah 29:11- 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.) 

Isaiah 58:11

11 And the Lord will guide you continually
    and satisfy your desire in scorched places
    and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
    like a spring of water,
    whose waters do not fail.

       I have struggled for so long with doubting that God desires to take care of me.  I hadn't actually viewed it like that, because the words of trust would flow out of my prayers and even in my thoughts, but my actions subtly revealed a deep rooted distrust in Him.  It wasn't until I thought about having bad hair, splotchy skin, 20 more pounds or an ugly husband that I realized I was in deep and desperate need for the Son.  I wanted to love God so long as I could avoid these things, which meant that I didn't trust that God would give me what was best for me.  I knew what was best, and if I didn't have them than God was certainly not my friend.  In fact He was my enemy if He wouldn't let me hold on to what I wanted, like a child that tells his or her mother "I hate you" when they are no longer allowed to divulge in endless amounts of candy.  We don't know what's good for us compared the One who created us and knows the stretch of eternity.  I don't know what's good for me, and trusting that God does will require me to hand him everything.  To place before Him my wants and desires, my dreams and ambitions, all if it.  To give up "having nice hair" for a beauty rooted in the hands that artfully create the very eyes that behold it.  It only makes perfect sense if you truly believe that He is real.  I don't want to serve a dead god anymore. 

Facing the Son,

-J