Today as my grandma was assuring me I had enough time to get her a strawberry-banana smoothie before I needed to leave; I asked her if she noticed my hair cut. My grandma is very honest and uncensored and I knew that she would relay her true feelings in the most loving way possible. And she did friends. Her response to my comment was, “Your hair looks good. I like it short. It only looked bad when you had long hair.” Now may be the appropriate time to inform you that my hair was long for 22 years. Even though she didn’t make comments on the length of my hair as I was growing up, she did comment on my hair numerous times. In high school, I let my sister and my best friend die my hair Egyptian plum. As soon as I walked out of the bathroom, my grandma said, “you look terrible and your dad is going to kill you. She was right friends; my hair was a horrible shade of purple. (I don’t even think a clown wig should contain Egyptian plum hair coloring) And my dad wasn’t all too pleased as he sat in the stands of my summer league basketball watching his daughter shoot foul shots with plum-colored hair. (I believe he called me Dennis Rodman after the game)If this wasn’t enough to teach me the evils of over the counter hair dye; I again let my sister dye my hair. This time my do-it yourself highlights left me with a bright yellow skunk stripe down the middle of my head. I didn’t find humor in the skunk stripe and when I went to my grandma to be comforted (I knew better) she laughed at my hair and kindly reminded me that I couldn’t re-dye it for a week. If I didn’t love her as much as I do; I would have become very offended and upset at her comments but instead I laughed and was thankful that when the rest of the world is biting their tongue(or buying me a toboggan); my grandma was letting me know how she really felt.
Today as I laughed at all of my not so pleasant hair experiences; I was certain of one thing: I would never go back to the terrible hair-styles I had at one point in my life. I didn’t need a visual reminder of what my hair once looked like (hopefully those pictures are gone forever); a conversation with my grandma was enough. We can all agree that when we see the hair styles of our past; we laugh, we cry, we ask ourselves what our parents were thinking, and we vow never to put ourselves through that again. So why do we constantly put ourselves through the sin and hurt of our past? Why do allow our deepest hurts to resurface like pictures of our out of date hair styles? God’s desire for all of us is to forget our past and bury our hurt and sin, never to dig it up again. When we truly ask for forgiveness; God mends our broken heart and heals the pain from our sin. He covers us with His grace and washes us with the undeserving blood of Christ. God will never dig up our past to remind us of where we have been. But He does ask us to start over and let Him do something new in us. We can’t begin the new until we allow the old to die. We must put to death to all of our impurities and all of our sins and when we bury them; we can never ever return to our burial site with a shovel. We must walk away from the mound of dirt knowing that we belong to the King. A King who will never condemn us or remind us of all we permanently buried. A King who will guide our future paths and allow us to finally feel freedom and contentment in Him. When you start to get a visual image of your past and you feel the pain and the hurt of your life and the temptation of your sin; don’t search for a shovel. Have a conversation with God. Find peace in His presence, comfort in His words, and freedom from whatever had you bound for so long.
Today I tried my best to block out the images of my crazy hair styles of the past but was able to laugh at my beauty school mishaps. Photos of my purple hair may resurface ( especially since I have 2 sisters); but the images of my past are buried forever. God isn’t laughing at my mishaps; He is using them for His glory.
Verse to remember:
Isaiah 43:18 Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past
Isaiah 42:16 I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them: I will turn darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
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