Month five of my World Race is coming to a close and a lot has changed for me. The Lord has really been working in my heart, revealing things to me and drawing me closer to Him. Though this journey has not at all been what I expected, He is still good, and blessing me beyond measure.
My intimacy with Him has grown so much over the course of these five months and it has allowed Him to reveal things to me that I’d never given much thought to before. And that’s what this blog is about.
All my life I’ve never really cared what other people thought of me. Their opinions were theirs and they had a right to them, but their opinions held no influence over me or my decisions. The only people in my life whose opinions have ever carried any weight are my parents; if they said it was okay then it was; if they said I should try this or that then I did this or that; if they didn’t like something then I didn’t like something; and if they believed a certain way then I did too, especially in terms of my faith. To me, they did everything the right way or the way things were “supposed” to be done and they could do no wrong. Ultimately my parents were my idols.
Things started to change for me in high school. I began figuring some things out for myself and forming opinions of my own as I learned and matured (praise God). My parents’ opinions were still very important to me but I didn’t take everything of theirs on as my own anymore.
About the time of my sophomore year in college I had an experience similar to Scout Finch’s in Harper Lee’s book Go Set A Watchman: I learned how human my parents really are. (I say similar in that it was earth-shattering to find out my parents are prone to just as many mistakes as I am, not in that it was similar because my parents are racists or bigots because they aren’t lol). I don’t remember what triggered this epiphany, only that I felt like the rug of the world I had been standing on had been ripped out from underneath me. I had put my parents high up on a pedestal with standards that they could never hope to live up to and I was left floundering when the world I had shaped around them came tumbling down. I don’t think my parents ever realized that this happened or even that I felt this way about them. But from this experience is when I really started trying to figure out what I believe and why, especially in regards to my faith. It was also when I was met with the question of how can I be different from them and still honor them and make them happy?
So I no longer took everything my parents said as absolute truths and my relationship with Jesus was becoming my own relationship with Him, but I still wasn’t walking in the truth of what the Lord says about me. My parents and I disagreed on things but I was still partial to their judgements and inclinations. Basically I was living my life for them.
Growing up I always wanted to make my parents proud and for them to be happy with me. I think that’s why their opinions, and what they think of me have always held so much weight. Even after my revelation I was still super concerned with what they thought of me. Now I don’t think my parents have ever been disappointed in me or ever even unhappy with me but the possibility of making them unhappy or disappointing them really affected me. I gave more power to them than I did my Heavenly Father!
The last month in India was hard but oh so fruitful. It was outrageously hot with no air conditioning whatsoever and the mosquitoes feasted on my blood (no kidding I had almost 20 bites on my feet and ankles at one time). But our hosts were AMAZING. They poured in to us and really challenged us to discover why we believe what we believe, why we are here (on this earth), and to know scripture like the backs of our hands. It was in the process of answering those questions that I realized that I’m not here to make my parents (or anyone else) happy and I don’t need their validation. I had been putting what they said above and before what Jesus says… I have been living my life in the bondage of others and didn’t even realize it.
With that being said, I’ve been wanting to cut all of my hair off for several years but never have and that’s for a multitude of reasons, the main ones being my parents advised against it and because I was afraid I would look like a boy (or worse, one of my brothers! (just kidding)). Since being on the Race I’ve continuously thought about it and have even watched one of my squamates shave her head, but I couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to do it. Then, one Sunday in an Indian church, after realizing the bondage I had been in and once again thinking about cutting my hair, I heard Him say “It’s okay.”
He meant it’s okay if I want to cut my hair and it’s okay if I don’t. It’s okay because He said it’s okay and it only matters what He says. And I’m not going to live in bondage of any kind, I’m going to live in the freedom provided in Christ and who He says I am.
So I cut my hair.
