As long as I inhabit this flesh

"...those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor.  And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment." 

1 Corinthians 12:22-24

...but what do you do if your "unpresentable" is something that was meant to be "presentable?"

My hair, again.  

So here we go again.  There are things happening in my life for which I do not have the answer.  These I daily lay at the feet of Jesus and ask Him to resolve.  And there are things I daily struggle with that have, I would say, no significance.  Except that they are significant in the way they are shaping and softening and taming my soul.

  It's about my hair. 

Isn't it always about my hair?

     Dear Lord, thank you for the way you created me, and for knowing every hair on my head.  I know those hairs, too, and we are not friends.  You and I are friends, but the hair and I are not, never have been, and I see this as being my worst feature, naturally, even worse than my bunion toes.  Even worse than my tendency to use run on sentences and be proud and hateful.   My hair trumps all that, because that is the degree to which I am weak and human and self loathing in ways I wish I could tell you I am not. But this is how you made me, so to YOU be the glory in your creation of little me, here on planet Earth and struggling with very unbeautiful things except in the way they are beautifying my soul. 

Love, Michelle 

 Very honest here.

  I have always viewed my very fine hair as a handicap.  A very painful handicap which was the first thing anyone ever saw of me, and then dismissed me right off by.  Kids can be so cruel.  The cruelty of child peers can stick to your insides.

    Fast forward to today.  I was interval running on the highest incline of the treadmill, which is when all of my brain electrodes start firing off at each other.  Today, they said to each other, "Today is the day to highlight your hair.  Do it as soon as you get home."  This thought occurred to me out of nowhere very fast.  No thought, then bam, full thought fully completed within the time span of double zero seconds.  Folks, this is why we have assurance that eternity exists: the fact that we can have a complete thought in zero seconds.  That it takes no time at all, Earth time, to get from point A to point Z.  

    Came home, applied the highlighter cap, mixed the highlighter mix, applied to my head, left it on for an hour.  Washed with the special shampoo packet, dried, styled, wha la. 

     The thing is, when you wear daily and publicly a part of yourself which you are not entirely delighted by, or which you feel downright ashamed by, you find ways to take extra special care of it.  You use the shampoo, you use the curling irons, the straightening irons, the tools.  And you become less perfectionistically picky about it.  Someone else's "good enough, almost," becomes your "Awesome hair day!" which happens um, 1x a year?  And then you want to take a thousand pictures to document it because it happened that one day, and you don't even know why, but sometimes it's because of the shirt you are wearing.  I can tell and sort of manipulate the type of hair day I will have based on the shirt I wear that day.  Does this happen to anyone else?  I wonder.  

     I have spent many, many minutes, hours, days, bemoaning my hair to the Lord.  I have cried, yes grieved, over this part of myself.  I have felt utter shame and self contempt, unpresentable.  I have asked, begged, the Lord to change this part of my appearance.  You know, He could have easily done a hair miracle on me. He still can; I do not doubt it.  But I also look back and realize that maybe, just maybe, this part of me that lacked glory was for a greater glory which I could not see, which belonged only to HIM.  

Such is the nature of anything truly beautiful.

    Try to rewrite any major aspect of your life (so far) narrative, and you see that it doesn't work.  You take out the sorrow here, the sadness here, the humiliation there, and you realize that you would not be the person you are today.  If I had been born with the type of hair I have envied on other people's heads, I would be a lot more shallow, a lot more insensitive to ANY of the sufferings of anyone else.  

     What are you insecure about?  Is there something you wish the LORD would change about your make up, whether physical, mental, or emotional?  Then in that area, you can relate and have an extra heart of compassion for those who struggle in the same area as you.  And if you struggle in ANY area,  then you can relate to the struggles of others in EVERY area.  

I like the effect of the highlights in my hair today.  

I have learned over the years to work with what I have in ways that I like.  And it's this not just waking up and looking like an after picture but having to work at it which has built a strength in me  I could have in no other way known.  Much like working a weak muscle over the years and months, and finding one day that there is genuine muscle tone in that area of your body which you never actually thought was possible.

Take heart in this: Because I do not like my natural hair, what do you think is the first thing I notice on other people?  Involuntarily, I notice and appreciate their hair.  I THINK YOU ALL HAVE AMAZING HAIR, EVERY DAY!  The parts of myself that I never think twice about?  I hardly notice those parts on other people, too.  For this is the way of human nature.  And God loves us, yes he does, in all of our self loathing pride (that is not an oxymoron, it is the same thing) and he can use even our simplest of vanity to bless and further His kingdom when we submit it to Him.

This daily laying down, 

it feels a lot like getting to know God in astonishing ways which will surprise you,

and soften you,

and show you the pride which you had titled  "insecurity" to mask it's ugliness