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December
Advice
I Love You

November
38. Bald is beautiful
37. Fire
36 Sleep
35 Music

October 2006
34. Stupidity
33. Painting
32. mmm Pasties
31. Built to last
30. Phlegm

September 2006
29. Meetings
28. Crime thoughts
27. Colours
26. Unwanted guests

August 2006
25. Comparison
24. Waterproof Mascara
23. Tasty MSG
22. Helplessness

July 2006
21. Attraction
20. Hair
19. Hero
18. Laughter
17. Factoids

June 2006
16. Voiceless
15. Bruises (ouch)
14. Sunburn
13. Mistakes

May 2006
12. Arms
11. Willow Tree
10. Eurovision
9. Chicken
8. Addictions

April 2006
7. Age
6. Celebrities
5. Language

March 2006
4. Commonwealth Games
3. Decisions
2. Drizzle
1. Trelawney

Bald is Beautiful 

I have just got off the phone from my dad. Nothing unusual about that, except he has just told me that I was once beautiful. It has been a joke in our family, (although I seemed to be the only one not laughing!) that my dad has never thought I was beautiful – not as a baby, not as a child, not as an adult. Apparently I have never been beautiful in my father’s eyes, until now. He has just found some pictures of me when I was about 12 and I had really short hair, and he thinks that if I want to capture that beauty again I should cut off my curls. From what I can remember of that time in my life, I hadn’t yet developed in the chest region and people often thought I was a boy! Am now slightly worried about my dad’s concept of beauty!! 

Up until last week I was very annoyed at my dad for not thinking I was a beautiful baby – I mean all parents are supposed to think their babies are gorgeous, so why didn’t mine? Well having now seen the photo evidence….I was an ugly baby. Truly hideous! I didn’t have hair until I was two, and in all the photos I just look like this moody, bald, thing. I’m laughing now, but it’s a wonder my parents took me out in public! My brother was (and I repeat, was) a cute, smiley thing with lovely golden hair and a cheeky grin. I was a blob with no hair. Not even enough strands for a comb-over. I made Vin Diesel look like he has flowing locks!  

After the age of two I suddenly grew these beautiful golden curls, which I think made me look cute and adorable, and my brother was no longer the best looking in our family. Since then I seem to have made up for the 2 years of baldness as I have an excess of head hair. With the exception, that is, of when my Granny’s hairdresser mistakenly cut it all off when I asked for a bob at the age of 12, which is when my dad thinks I looked my best!

 Who knew hair could make such a difference to people? I remember the comments that I got when my hair went bright blue (for a charity event, not just a freak accident or anything!) and people treated me like a different person. Am I not the same person whether my hair is blue or a kind of a browny-gingery colour? Am I not the same person whether my hair is curly or straight? Would I not be the same person if I cut it all off? (it may prevent me from getting nits again though – maybe it’s not such a bad idea) Why then am I considered ugly with no hair, beautiful with a small amount of hair and nothing special (unless you’re a nit) with long hair? 

Apparently we all make judgements about people we meet in under 10 seconds. In this time we’ve decided whether or not we are likely to get on with this person and if we should make more of an effort to get to know them. All this is done without us realising we are doing it. Our hair makes up a large part of someone’s appearance and so is instrumental in the outcome of our mini judgements. We can decide if we want to like someone on the colour, length and style of a filamentous outgrowth of dead cells, i.e. their hair. 

Looking at my hair this morning, with it sticking up all over the place, I am eternally thankful that God doesn’t judge us in the same way. That He doesn’t look at me and go, “Uh uh, I don’t think so. Have you seen her hair? She’s not even made an effort. Right, that’s it, I don’t think I want to love her anymore. I’ll just walk away now while I got the chance.” Let’s face it, removing the whole hair thing, God could take several looks at me and still come to the same conclusion…. “Uh, uh, I don’t think so. Have you seen her life? She keeps making the same mistakes, isn’t doing what I ask of her, doesn’t listen to me and I’m not sure she’s even making an effort to try to do the right thing. Right, that’s it, I don’t think I want to love her anymore. I don’t think I’m going to die for her anymore. I’ll just walk away now while I’ve got the chance.” 

I cannot understand what God could see in me that is worth all the love He constantly gives me? I don’t get why He would look at me and still send Jesus to die for me. I don’t deserve it and I don’t always appreciate it. But that’s what is so amazing about grace. I can’t earn God’s love. There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you more. We don’t deserve it, but God looks past the rubbish and sees us for who we are, He looks past the bad hair and sees the real us – because He made us beautiful and no amount of bad hair or rubbish is going to change how He looks at us…like a parent seeing something amazing and wonderful when the rest of the world just sees an ugly, bald blob!