Devotion 349 - pigtails

It’s that moment every woman knows.  When we stop and write a treatise in our own head in response to something our children, our spouses or our life has done.

It is a speechless moment as our brains are at the speed of light figuring something out.

That is what women do.  We figure things out. We are masters of control or perceived control and matriarchs of fixing, figuring and fostering solutions. 

My daughter, my go with the flow, life is one big slice of pie daughter sat on my bed and absolutely refused to let me put two pig tails in her hair.  She made it abundantly clear, one was okay but two were non-negotiable.

Happy go lucky had been tossed out the window by sad getting madder. My mental diatribe began.  She had just worn the adorable tails the day before.  I decided it was kindergarten.  Surely some little classmate had told her tails were not trending.  Ava however rarely listens to what others say.  She is more often the leader and not the follower.  Then I decided it was rebellion.  We are a good seven years until the teens take off but why not be an overachiever?  Then I settled on the worse possible scenario.  Perhaps Ava is actually worried about how she looks.

I  h a t e d thinking about this.  There is something so precious about these beginning years of life.  Ava dances when nobody or everybody is watching.  She grips life with a gusto I have rarely seen.  She loves fiercely.  She has a humor and a tenderness that witness to me of God Himself.  I didn’t like the thought that she would care what others think of her appearance.  At that moment the finger of blame started to point my way.  Perhaps she had seen me more in the mirror than in prayer or perhaps more often looking than serving.  It frightened me.

I toggled between courage and frustration.  My mental steam engine was barreling into a station where I did not want to stop. I took a long deep breath and asked Ava what was the story with the pig tails.  She calmly explained that after school is nap time,  and she cannot sleep with tails sticking out the side of her head.  Simple, perfect and so honest.  That is the beautiful girl she is.

I put one little pony tail on the top of her head and we were off to school.  The shame of this moment was not lost on me.  I was ready to reprove her and me with the thought that she would care what people thought or how anyone would esteem beauty in her hairstyle.  Yet somehow, somewhere between toddler and teen this travesty begins.

I have read in scripture that beauty fades.  It is not the fading so much that bothers me it’s the drooping and the wrinkling.  But there is grace, always grace, even in the fading.  I count among many blessings beginning to finally learn about true beauty.  I only hope those lessons will extend to my children.  I can think of people I have met who at first glance seemed exquisitely beautiful, but then with time, that beauty gave way to a heart of darkness.  I have met women whose gentleness and grace adorn them with beauty I can only hope to one day emulate. 

I see in my husband a heart that reflects our Savior.  There is nothing more lovely.  I see in my children true love, unbridled beauty and incomprehensible joy.  I watch and want to be more like them.

I want to choose beautiful.

I want to think the very best of those I meet. 

I want to encourage and not tear down.

I want to see where I can grow and not sit back or settle below what God has for me.

They say French women are beautiful because they think of themselves as beautiful.  How much more for those who harbor the Holy Spirit should we declare beauty?

God could have painted the sky with one color, instead the palate is indescribable.  He could have made every man, every woman to resemble; instead we are exquisitely different pages in the story of redemption.  

We can look at life as a series of days or the miracle of moments to find joy and surrender selfishness.

We can look in the mirror with gratitude for breath and life or criticize the creation and thereby the Creator.

I want to be on the side of gratitude and see with the eyes of grace choosing beautiful, one pigtail at a time.

“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” 1 Samuel 16:7

“I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” 
― Anne Frank, the Diary of a Young Girl