Of Bad hair days…and Grace

Last week I told a little story from my 2nd and 3rd grade year and I hesitate taking you further down memory lane…but this is what keeps coming to me to share so here we go.

I am a person who loves stability, and God moved our family just one more time after third grade.

My dad started an ROTC program in Danville Ky.

We lived there until I graduated from high school and right away…I found friends and a home in that town.

We weren’t perfect and we had our share of drama, but when I look back I see a treasure trove of memories that are precious to me of those kids and teachers.

We hit high school in the early 70’s.

Not one of fashion’s most stellar moments. To put it mildly, we may have invented grunge.

It was the dark ages and hand held hair dryers were nowhere to be found. We used electric rollers instead of curling irons. I know. Gasp.

Many days, we put on our smocks with heart pockets that we had made in Home Ec class, our bell bottom jeans and saddle oxfords and tied a bandana around our dirty hair.

Good. To. Go.

Until one of our classmates…and trust me…they were always male….would come up behind us and tug the back of that scarf.

At best, the knot just caught your hair and smarted a bit while you grabbed for cover.

Worst case scenario was he got the whole thing and was twirling it around his head like a lasso.

I can well remember covering my head with one hand while I snatched at that precious piece of fabric with the other.

It was all meant to be in good fun and quite honestly our flat dirty hair probably didn’t look any worse than the bandana had…but it was an unwanted revealing for sure.

I confess I have often mistaken God’s correction in a similar light.

I have falsely pictured Him as one who, because He knows exactly what I am trying to hide, is just biding His time until the right moment when He can snatch my covering and expose to all the world my shame.

Falsely pictured.

Because His word from beginning to end is quite the opposite.

From killing His own creation in Genesis so that He could cover the shame of His people; to sending His Son to die on the Cross…He is all about forgiveness. And mercy. And grace.

Our culture is increasingly convincing people that sin is a figment of our imagination, but shame attends sin as surely as embarrassment follows a good scarf-nabbing.

We need to remember the Cross of Jesus Christ and own our part, so that we can rejoice in His part.

We need to understand and live in the grace and forgiveness of the Great Exchange each and every day.

Our sin and shame traded for His forgiveness and glory.

God bless you as we …. journey onward through Lent <3