This blog was inspired by real life events. Those events just happened to occur in my life over the past 6 months.
Six months ago, I did something that would grow and stretch me thin in areas I was previously confident in. What started out as a small change esthetically, eventually turned into a mental and emotional journey. I changed my appearance in one way. JUST one. Here’s my journey…
I cut my hair. Errr I shaved my head. Because why not? My hair has never defined me and never will so I thought, “what’s the big deal with the length of it?” If you were to ask my mom a dream of mine since I was younger, she’d say two things. She’d say, “Rachael’s dream job was to work at McDonald’s (I had a love for the fries starting at a young age), and to shave her head to be a baldy.”
The physical journey…
I LOVED my new hair. I ditched my bottle of conditioner, downsized my bottle of shampoo, and never worried about having a “bad hair day”. If anything, I’d have “bad peach fuzz”. Bottom line was, it was SHORT. So thus began the journey.
It wasn’t until Africa that I was mistaken for a man. I could be wearing earrings, a dress and makeup, yet still my gender was in question. Now I can see with my own two eyes that I’m not the most well-endowed human on the planet, but I’ve never looked in the mirror and thought I resembled anything other than a woman.
This person’s mistake threw my confidence into a whirlwind. I knew my gender (still do ??) and my identity in Christ, but it had never been questioned by others. This took my identity to a new level. A level of insecurity.
I repeatedly had to seek the Lord and listen to His truth about my appearance instead of others.
Africa was a struggle in about every way possible, but especially with my now inch long hair that stood straight in the air like it just didn’t care.
I vividly remember our second to last day in Africa when our team was packing to head to the airport very early the next morning. I finished showering, so I threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top then started making peanut butter balls (a V squad favorite) for our fifty-five hour travel day ahead of us. After realizing we needed more peanut butter, I ran down to a store with one of my male teammates to grab some.
After talking with a few African women store owners, we started to walk away with a local friend of ours we had met earlier in the month. As we walked away, our African friend began to laugh and glance back and forth from me to the other women. She turned towards me and said, “they think you’re a man.” This remark pushed me off the cliff and into the deep end. Without realizing what I was about to do, I wheeled around, looked those older African women in the eyes, and pulled down my shirt to expose as much of my bra as the elasticity in my shirt would allow. They gasped in shock and covered their mouths, while my teammate threw his hand over his eyes so fast it made a slapping sound.
It was at this point when I knew I needed to process my frustration with my teammates. For the sake of respecting the African culture, Adventures in Missions and my dignity, I felt like I couldn’t have another episode of revealing any part of my body to prove my gender.
It’s incredible what happens when people walk alongside you through things.
Did processing with my team fix everything?
Not at all.
But it helped simply knowing my people had my back, while being vessels of encouragement.
Little did I know, this new-found insecurity would spring up over and over through the remaining months in various ways. At airports I’d be ushered into the male security line with my other female short haired squad mate. We’d be heavily patted down in areas below the belt to see if we were hiding anything.
We weren’t.
Just the other day I was asked (while wearing earrings and a necklace) if I was married to one of the girls on our squad. After surprising him with my straight forward “no”, he proceeded to tell me I looked like a man.
I was hurt. Then frustrated. Then frustrated that I was frustrated. Then infuriated. All I wanted to do was turn around and tell him how unattractive he was and how he looked like an ugly woman (he didn’t look like a woman but I just wanted to hurt him like he hurt me).
Yet all I did was sit and ask the Lord to show me how He sees me. A peace and forgiveness started to grow inside of me.
I never imagined how changing one feature of my physical appearance would challenge the depth of my identity in Christ, and I sure as heck didn’t think I’d flash an innocent African lady in the process.
That’s how growth is. It’s messy sometimes. You learn things about yourself. Sometimes those are fun realizations while others are scary and frustrating.
It’s not about how fast you’re standing at the finish line or how fresh you look. It’s not just about finishing. It’s about going through the process. Period.
Go through the process so you can stand at the finish line. You might have a few bumps and bruises, but you’ll be stronger than when you started. Guaranteed.
I’m not at the finish line in my process. Remember the story I just told about me wanting to tell that man he looked like a lady? Yeah, I’m definitely not at the finish line.
But I am confident of one thing…
I’m not where I wanna be, but I’m sure glad I am not where I used to be.
