I want to live a better story, I want to live a life with more memorable moments. I want to live an uncomfortable life, I want to live a life that will push me out of my own comfort zone.
When I was a freshman in high school I had this desire to shave my head and donate my hair to locks of love but I backed out on myself because people convinced me not to do it up until now. I've regretted it since that moment when I always would back out. I was always so worried about peoples opinion on how they would react to me shaving my head, asking myself will people think I'm ugly? those thoughts kept creeping up on me. And I was so fed up with it that I discarded the whole idea of me shaving my head. Because back then peoples opinions meant so much to me and hate to say it but if they had an opinion on something I'd take their advice even if it was about just HAIR. Like really was hair that big of a deal for me back in highschool? Yeah sadly it was, I always wanted it to be perfect. I would straighten it everyday, it defined the way I looked at myself and the way people would look at me. It consumed me.
Many years later God called me on the World race going into the unknown life in places that I have never been. BUT I knew from the very beginning when I was accepted that this would be a year of really figuring out what it truly means to be a woman of God and to find my identity in Christ. I don't feel like I'm a girl any longer, but I also don't feel like I'm a woman yet. So what am I?
Well I'm stuck in the VERY middle.
Struggling with the difference between who God says a woman is and who society expects a woman to be. God shows his expectations in Proverbs 31. Expectations for woman in magazine pages, tv, shows, music, worldly and cultural norms. The two expectations don't match up. Not at all. What does God say about beauty? God cares about what is on the inside. God sees our beauty in our hearts. While society is about our appearance on the outside.
No matter how we look at ourselves or how the world looks at us. God looks at us completely different.
And I'm sure that most woman would agree that our beauty tends to revolve around our hair. The worldly expectations of beauty puts so much pressure on ladies. At the point where we start comparing ourselves to other ladies.
So I decided to shave my head.
For me it was an experience to test my confidence. My identity.
Without hair will I still be beautiful? Will I still be that woman I claim to be? Am I still strong? Can I still bring light to the darkest of places? Can I still bring the Kingdom to earth? Can I still offer such joy that overwhelms me to the sad at heart? Bring hope to the hopeless? Could I looks past my outer appearance and be confident in who I am as a woman?
And if your wondering how I feel….
I feel beautiful more than ever before. I feel great. I feel overwhelmingly happy. I feel like crying with how much joy I have in my heart.
The world says you need to look a certain way on the outside to be beautiful. That's not true. Don't believe that lie. You are beautiful the way God created you don't hide it. Show your natural beauty to the world they need to see it.
"You make beautiful things. you make beautiful things out of the dust, you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us. You make me new, You are making me new." -Beautiful things by Gungor
