McLeroy family lore holds that I was born bald as a billiard, and didn’t have much hair at all until I was almost two. (Baby pictures confirm this sad tale.) But I made up for my early deficit in spades after that.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had thick, full hair. Lots of it. Takes-forever-to-dry hair. Won’t-fit-under-a-ballcap hair. The kind of hair hairdressers love and other people might actually envy. (I know this probably sounds a little vain, and I am sorry. Kind of.)
Well, that hair, as they say, has left the building. Now what I see in the mirror is an alarming sphere of stubble that can’t decide what color it should be. My already-distrustful relationship with mirrors has become something closer to loathing. I see a woman in them now I barely recognize, except around the eyes.
Maybe that’s why I got teary a few days ago when the teenaged boy working the McDonald’s drive-thru handed me my Diet Coke and said, “You have pretty eyes. I’ll bet you hear that all the time, right?” I told him I didn’t, actually, but it was nice to hear it from him.
He probably wouldn’t have seen my eyes at all if they had not been peeking out from underneath Loretta.
Loretta is a wig. She goes out in public with me these days so other people are not as alarmed to see me as I am to see myself. She helps me short-circuit awkward questions or stares, even as I imagine people searching her monofilament crown for a part, or her lace hairline for a tell-tale shadow. (I know in truth people care far less about this than I think, but still…)
I love Loretta, and I hate her. I’m grateful for her and resentful. She makes me feel more like myself and like an imposter at the same time. Ours is a complicated relationship; I don’t believe I’ll miss her when she’s no longer needed to the maintain the facade of normalcy she provides.
Until that day comes, I keep asking Jesus to remind me who I really am underneath Loretta’s fringe. Who I’ve always been, sick or well, confident or insecure, hopeful or fearful, faithful or faithless. I am His. I am His beloved. I am one He wooed from death to life and died to make fully, unbelievably, impossibly alive. And so are you.
As you live this new life, we pray that you will be strengthened from God’s boundless resources, so that you will find yourselves able to pass through any experience and endure it with courage. You will even be able to thank God in the midst of pain and distress because you are privileged to share the lot of those who are living in the light. For we must never forget that he rescued us from the power of darkness, and re-established us in the kingdom of his beloved Son, that is, in the kingdom of light. For it is by his Son alone that we have been redeemed and have had our sins forgiven.
Colossians 1: 11-14, J. B. Phillips Translation
I kept thinking of this old Jason Gray song as I wrote these words:
https://youtu.be/QSIVjjY8Ou8?si=k-4QTB0mTLiETLR7
I KNOW God holds you in the palms of His hands. You have His spirit in you. My life journey includes having Stage 4 bladder cancer, which God has healed. I was ready to go see Him, eager to be a part of the Heaven He created for me, but there must be more work for me to do here. Looking forward to that, too. May God Bless you in ways you can see and not see. You contribute a lot to my faith. : )