Loving the YOU God Made

I was born blonde. As a little girl I had white blonde hair that I remember got lots of comments and attention. When I was around 10 or 11 it started getting darker and I remember feeling like it wasn't 'me' and by 13 I was getting my Mom to streak blonde back into my hair via a box of colour from the store. It really didn't go well, and by 16 I was paying for professionals to restore the blonde that I somehow felt was my proper identity.

The lie there is that our identities are not supposed to come from our hair, they're supposed to come from God; from the fact that He created us each individually out of love and with a perfect and intentional plan for us, and when He was done He said, "It is good." And the fact that when we went astray and humanity for the most part stopped including our maker in our daily lives and got so bogged down in sin and selfishness that we were lost and closer to the side of destruction than the side of holiness, God still saw so much value in us that He devised a plan that sent His beloved Son to earth to suffer a persecution and death that would carry all the weight of humanity's disobedience and the utter separation from God that was our just punishment. But Jesus, being God, did not remain in Hell as we would have; but broke through it and opened a way to Heaven for all of us who would surrender to the truth that we had fallen away from our loving Creator, and needed a Saviour to bring us back. THAT is how we know our worth and our identity - because God proved it. We are His.

So fast forward 10 years, and I have been mostly all blonde since I was 18, only seeing glimpses of my natural colour as my roots grew in, signalling that it was time for me to go 'fix' them.

Now I know many people dye their hair and for many women it's just like accessorizing or trying on different clothes, but for me it was trying to fix something about myself that I didn't like and thought was wrong. And for many years as I struggled with weight I subconsciously felt, "well at least my hair is nice." As though it somehow made up for the rest of me being so disgusting (horrible self talk - it's hard even to type, but it's how I felt. No wonder God has been working this out of me! I praise Him!)

So every once in a while I have an urge to see what it would be like to have my natural colour back. The urge is fleeting though, and soon the same old thoughts fill back in and the idea is quickly shut down. Last week however, something different happened.

As a new Mom staying home with my Son and on a greatly reduced income because of the inconsistency of my Husband's profession, God has been leading me to pursue whatever saving and stretching of our family's dollars I can find. We've been cutting unnecessary services, actively couponing, selling unused items, driving less, no longer eating out etc. So it became hard to justify my $100+ trips to the salon every 2-3 months. As I considered going back to my natural hair colour to save money, I started looking back through old photos to see if I could find any with my natural colour. But what I mostly found were photos of me as a blonde, and on top of it, photos where I was thinner and spending way more time on my hair, makeup and clothing than I do currently. Immediately my mind was being assaulted with horrible thoughts about myself and how I look now, feeling completely discouraged about my weight and being told that I would never look better or feel healthier than this. That, folks, is full on spiritual attack from the Father of Lies, Satan, the Accuser. If you suffer thoughts like this, know they are not your own and you do NOT need to believe them. So after having a good cry and talking it out with my Husband and praying, God revealed this scripture to us, "Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God." (1 Peter 3:3-4 NLT) Don't you just love the simplicity of that!? I heard the truth and it set me free. I realized that the best and only way to stand up and fight this was to go for it - ditch the blonde that was somehow telling me I needed it, and allow my natural, God-given hair colour to grow out. And to spend more time allowing God to infuse my spirit with His beauty than I do on my hair. The more I thought of it, the more excited I got. I loved knowing a way to finally have victory over this feeling!

So yesterday I went through with it, and I have to tell you it was so anticlimactic! I thought I would be nervous and indecisive (that would be me), but instead I was confident, joyful and at peace (that would be God). It's going to be a 2 step process, it will get a little darker than this, but I am so happy with it! It feels like 'me', looks natural, and makes me incredibly stoked that God is teaching me to LOVE myself the way HE made me, not the ways I might wish I am. The truth is, His way is, and will ALWAYS be, the best way.

Here's a photo of me before I left for my hair appointment, and some shots of it after. I'm blogging from my phone (yeah, I know) so not sure if they'll show up in the right order, but I trust you to figure it out :)

Do I win for longest ever post about hair!? Haha.