Welp. I shaved my head today.
Gosh. I feel so …heck I don't even know what I feel. I'll start from the beginning and maybe the words will come.
This past year and a halfish God took away pretty much everything that I found my identity in. It was a stinkin painful process… but one that had to be done. I actually asked for it. No literally. I bawled my eyeballs out one night in bed begging Him to take anything that stood in the way of us. That was a loaded request. With a loaded answer. One by one things were stripped away. Ouch. Dang. Slow it down, this hurts.
Nope. It's what you need… it's what you asked for. It's necessary. It's for your good. Trust me.
…fast forward a year and a halfish, here I am on the race. I thought about shaving my head before I came, pretty much just because I thought it would be cool. I never did… obviously… but it has stayed in the back of my mind. The more time that went by, though, the more I was like nahhhh… it's finally getting long. I finally feel pretty. I'm getting compliments on it. I started growing it out years ago and it's finally actually growing. Then my teammate Karaline mentioned wanting to do it and asked what I thought. My immediate reaction was YES! But then, again, the more I thought about it I was like wait, no… I can't do that. What's a girl without her hair? The more I thought about it, the more I had a battle in my mind.
Don't do it, you'll be hideous.
Do it, trust me.
I can't do it.
I want to show you how beautiful you really are.
Nope.
Let me strip you of this. You're holding on to unnecessary things again, just trust me. Find your identity in me alone.
Okaaaay.
So this afternoon we got it goin. We started with a mini worship sesh. Karaline went first, then when she was done I sat in the hair chair. I had it in six different sections so each of my teammates could cut off a chunk. When the first chunk was gone, I think my stomach was somewhere down in my feet. Just hangin out. They all cut it, then Linsey started the shaving. Ahhh. I wish I could describe what it was like. It was so crazy. At first I heard all these lies. "Dang girl, that is NOT a pretty shaped head you have… Eek. Bad choice… You're ugly… No one is going to understand this… You call THIS pretty?" But as she kept going, it's like the lies started, but they never even fully made it to my head. I just saw the Lord take away every one of them. "You're so ug… NO. YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL." … "Worst decisi… NO. THANK YOU FOR TRUSTING ME WITH THIS." … "Your head looks like a waterme… NO. IT'S PERFECT."
Karaline didn't look at hers til I was done so we could see for the first time together. The other girls went into the bathroom to cover up the mirror and so they could see our reactions. When they went in, Karaline and I stayed back to pray in the room together. We prayed that when we looked in that mirror, God would overflow us with His feelings for us, how HE sees us. So we walked in. They pulled the shirt down from the mirror. And the words rang in my ears…
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
The crazy thing is… the lies didn't come back. He asked me to trust Him… to give Him the rest of what I was holding onto. I (hesitatingly) did what He asked.
And when I looked in that mirror, I felt nothing less than beautiful. Not because of my haircut, but because I trusted Him enough to take this dang big step, and asked Him for His eyes when I looked. He didn't disappoint. He never disappoints. And I am beautiful.
