Transparency and Gloss

How transparent does a blog have to be, anyway? Well, it is my blog, so I have some flexibility. I'm feeling like it's time for some confession. God is showing me some truths from an ordinary life event that are just too good to hide for pride's sake. Here goes ...

You may see that, from my photo, I have very dark hair. In the past few years, as I approached a milestone birthday, my kids starting commenting on my "natural highlights" peeking through (aka gray hair). I gave some excuse about my crown of wisdom & splendor(Prov. 16:31) and pretended like it didn't bother me. I even got a little mileage out of "Rise up before the gray headed" (Lev. 19:32). If they were all of a sudden distributed evenly and fully, like beautiful Wendy Blight of Proverbs 31, I would be so glad, but mine seemed to be crown of splendor "wannabees".

Now in Tennessee, springtime is the season to bring out a whole new collection of highlights. I even felt like never having my dark head touched by chemicals (Pride? We'll save that for another post...) was a good thing, so I resisted any color and often felt like a turnip in a bushel of apples, because of it. Still, I held out.

Well, April has been full of events and people, as I've mentioned, (including old friends who never saw my increasingly "wise" head), so I decided (at the subtle but loving prompting of my family members)that now might be the time. I really am not quite ready for my hair to look like ... my mom. (Sorry mom.) So I saved up and made an appointment with Heather the hairdresser to give me a little "tinted gloss." (That's Heather's way of making me feel like it's not DYE.) She's also the one who told me that my "highlights" were "platinum," not GRAY. :) Love her.

Now, don't bail out if you're one of my male readers, just because I brought up hair color. They don't run "Grecian formula" commercials for nothing. This is what God has shown me through my "tinted gloss." At first, I loved it. Heather even called it "Chocolate Espresso," and I loved that. Made me feel better. I loved the way it looked and hid all that gray that showed I'm ... getting older (ouch). I loved it that my husband loved it. But the more I wash it, and the more time passes, the more the real me, the "platinum", begins to show.

No matter how we try to cover up streaks in our lives, eventually the gloss will wear off, and the real us shows up. I would say the only real solution is to cut them out ... but more grow back. Someday, I will let God's process take its course and turn my life's streaks into a crown of wisdom. Maybe sooner than I think ... A "gloss" is just temporary. I've got a couple of weeks, at best. :(

So there's a little step of transparency. I won't ask to see your roots, if you won't ask to see mine. But when it comes to real "streaks" of sin in our lives (I am NOT saying gray hair is due to sin or that hair color is sin, so don't even go there in a comment :) ), I remember the first verse I ever memorized: Num.32:23b "You may be sure your sin will find you out." There is no hiding from God or hiding our true selves from the world. Eventually, even if we try to hide parts of our lives with something to "gloss" over it, the real us shows.

I wonder if I'll be "Chocolate Espresso" in my glorified body in heaven. :) What's under your gloss?