#not to mention the fact that jacob gets done and written so dirty in breaking dawn

[catstack17]

while i’m on the subject of twilight- i have no idea why it took me so long to realize just how much the events of breaking dawn do not make relatively any sense. hear me out- if alice could not see that bella was ok and alive in new moon because canonically she is not able to see past the wolves, then how could she see either vision in breaking dawn between renesmee’s “future” w/ jacob + the vision of the fight sequence because almost the entirety of the wolf pack is in that vision?!?!!!? like- none of that follows what was previously canon in the first three books as well as films???

[dandelionessblog-blog]

Why my walk with God is like my attempts to grow my hair

*||First written and published December 22 2016||*

My good friend, Meryn (shoutout alert!), once told me that every woman has that one thing they’re a princess about. For some, that means they absolutely hate getting their feet wet or dirty. For others, it’s their nails, and for others still it’s the fact that the idea of unclogging a toilet with naught but a plastic bag over their hand gives them the heebie-jeebies big time. It could be a tiny bit of lots of little things that make up somebody’s Princess Factor, and some woman have more of one than others.

For me, my Princess Factor is my hair. You can send me down clogged toilets, after spiders, into muck and dirt and on nail-breaking adventures. Just don’t get my hair wet, or else it goes greasy and weird which means I have to wash it, and if I mess up the very careful hair-washing schedule it’s on it makes it go dry and gives the ends even more excuse to split. Which they really don’t need; my ends split like olden day posh ladies swooned. (That is to say at the drop of a hat and with great melodrama.)

It has been my dream since about seven years ago to grow my hair to hip level. I don’t care that my hair splits easily. I don’t care that long hair is a mission to work with. I don’t even care, several well-meaning people who have mentioned this to me over and over, that guys tend to find very long hair unattractive. This is MY hair. And I want it long.

Easier said than done. As I mentioned, my hair dries out and splits despite my best efforts. And that thing about hair growing 13cm a year? It seems my hair missed that memo completely. But I’m still determined – this is, for a whole lot of reasons I won’t unpack and try to justify for scrutinising, critical minds here, my end goal of self-development on the purely shallow physical development side of things. And I was so close; a couple of days ago, people were saying how long my hair had gotten. It was at the start of my ribs and slowly, slowly inching downwards. It was the longest it has ever been; the closest it has ever been to the goal I’ve been fighting for for seven years.

And now, after this morning, my hair is shorter than it was last year this time. And as I sat – moping and trying not to cry, I’ll admit. Because it cut deep watching all that hair be cut off when I didn’t want it to be in the first place – I thought, melodramatically, that this must be what Jacob felt when he worked for seven years only to marry the wrong girl. So close, but no banana. And so he just needed to suck it up and start from the beginning again; possibly even further back than he had been when he’d first started to work for Rachel’s hand in marriage.

And that, of course, led me to become very Deep ™. My ultimate hair length, I philosophised, is a metaphor for The Level I want to be at with God. If I could only reach The Level, I’ve thought so many countless times, then I would know I’m enough of a Christian. That Level is the one where I don’t struggle with the things Paul says you should have left behind. That’s the Level where I only commit the really hard sins on a rare occasion, instead of the technically-really-easy-to-avoid sins that I do every hour now. The Level is where I’m David-level close to God; sure enough that I can boldly call myself a woman after God’s heart. Still human, but certainly much more on the path to becoming like Christ than I am now.

It sounds stupid when I write it down, but very, very often it makes perfect sense in my head. I joined Year of Your Life hoping it would kickstart me to The Level. I hoped Church Camp, Victory Camp, the World Conference would boost me closer to The Level. And just when I thought I was further than I ever have been before, God very gently pointed out the dead bits. And, against the will of my flesh, He cut those dead bits out and showed me where I really stood. And it hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. It made me so frustrated I wanted to give up. “Fine. This is as far as I can get? I’m not going to try and more. Why push and push and push only to be disappointed time and time and time again when I fail?”

Because my walk with God and growing my hair have this in common: I cannot make either happen. Oh, sure, there are things I can do to help the process along. Coconut oil, no heat, combing instead of brushing. Reading my Bible, praying, going to church and having fellowship. But none of those things will MAKE my hair grow or my relationship with Jesus flourish. Both things are completely out of my hands, in the end. And as a works-based person like me, that thought drives me crazy. Absolutely bonkers. Throw-in-the-towel crazy.

Thank God for His abundant patience. And sense of humour – He needs one of those to deal with me. As difficult – and I do mean really, really difficult – as it is for me to admit, there will always be “dead bits”. But, as the hairdresser pointed out, the more often you cut them off, the less gets chopped. The less painful it is, in the long run. The more it stimulates your hair to grow (apparently). And you do need to take care of your hair – even if it won’t MAKE it grow, no care will certainly do the opposite.

I can, theoretically, reach the length of hair I want. I won’t ever be able to get to The Level in my Christian walk; not the way I view The Level. And the thing is, God is teaching me that sometimes out of my hands is exactly the place things need to be. God is teaching me trust and patience. God is teaching me what His full acceptance means. He might finally be explaining to me what surrender means. And it hurts. And it’s frustrating because I want to be THERE, not HERE. But it’s necessary. And He knows what He’s doing. And no matter how much gets cut, there will always be growth again over time.