Just Because You Have a Uterus…

The battle for a decent west side haircut continues.

For the record, I am trying my darndest to be a grown-up and not go trekking through 4 hours of snow and ice simply because I really like having fabulous hair. And I do. I keep telling myself, buck up, grow a spine or better yet, some emotional depth so that you care more about things like starving children or global warming (snort) so that you can handle having bad haircuts and shrug. But growing up is a process, I suppose, so after my last mediocre west side haircut left me with unmanageable locks, funny lengths, and a weird tiger stripe around the sides of my head, I thought I would try a different place and just ask them to trim up the sides. I figured I could work with the rest.

You realize that if you keep rolling your eyes like that, they are going to get stuck back there.

I brought pictures. I was specific. I talked about my cowlicks as if I had more than a passing acquaintance with them (I don’t). And the hair stylist… talked. How is it possible for so little hair to take a full hour of yammering??? Though in her defense, there was way less hair at the end of the hour than I walked in with, which is why I will be wearing red lipstick and big sparkly earrings until I cease looking like an awkward preteen boy. Sigh. All those stereotypes about how big cities have everything better than small times? My hair says they are LIES.

Eventually, I just squeezed my eyes shut and waited for it to be over while the mildly nauseating barrage of verbiage washed over my soon-to-be sparsely decorated scalp and seeped, largely uninvited, into my stream of consciousness. I rather long for the days when hairdressers didn’t want to talk to you and just thrust a stack of Cosmo magazines in your lap and turned on a probably unnecessary hair dryer to ensure you wouldn’t get any funny ideas about striking up a conversation. Cosmo magazine was more edifying. Sit with that a moment, would ya?

But she did say something that stuck with me, saddened me, and continues to roll about in my thoughts. She was describing her daughter: 23 years old, a student at Central Washington University, studying to be a teacher, started out in computer science and has switched to art, dating a younger guy who moved from Colorado, they met online gaming which is, you know, way safer than online dating (note: to understand the hour, you really need to insert “you know” at least every 3 words, more frequently if she sensed the topic was important), they are staying over for New Year’s so they have to play a board game with her, it is called Pick Your Poison and it should be less competitive because her daughter has a history of flipping Monopoly boards and they are just taking it slow, but her daughter refuses to have kids (for best effect, please imagine this entire paragraph all hyphenated)… and yeah, she wishes she could have grandkids, but hey —

Just because she has a uterus doesn’t mean she has to use it.”

My heart sank with the sadness, the emptiness of it all, and while it would be easy to spend this post making social commentary about our current culture of death and the affect of feminism on the current generation, I am inclined to draw the target closer to home. Just because God gave it to me doesn’t mean I have to use it… isn’t that exactly the pit I am tempted daily to fall into?

Just because God gave me a broken body doesn’t mean I am supposed to thank Him for it, glorify Him with it?

Just because God gave me a home doesn’t mean I have to be a homemaker?

Just because God gave me people to live for doesn’t mean I have to die to myself?

Well… yeah. That’s exactly what it means. He gave you a uterus so you could bring life into the world. He gave you a home that you might create beauty and comfort and community in the sphere you are given. He gave you hardships that you might draw nearer, ever nearer, to Him. He gave you pain that you might know pleasure. He gave you children that you might bring them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. He gave you a husband that you might hold him up, complete him, take dominion alongside him. He gave you lungs that you might sing His praises. He gave you singleness that you might be undivided in service, that He would be the comfort of spouse and children to you Himself.

He gave you Himself — that you might be saved, delighted in, sung over, Beloved.

It is a new year. Enough with wasting the gifts. Enough with shrugging off the mercies because they are hard, because they take planting and watering and harvesting. Enough with whining about the seasons of busyness and writhing under the seasons of enforced rest. Enough with the discontent that always thinks someone else’s gift is better. Enough throwing away beauty and love and glory so that we can lie to ourselves and claim autonomy from our Creator — enough of being our own bear. Look up. Look around. It is time to embrace the gifts God has given you, all of them, and make hay while the sun shines.

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