Love One Another – Even on Bad Hair Days

Sometimes I don’t do a very good job of acknowledging the special gifts that each person around me possesses. I do try, because that’s something that God has laid pretty heavily upon my heart – the importance (and the gift of getting to) edify one another.

Yet often I find that I still fall so short of hitting the mark with this.

As I was driving home today, I started to wonder about it all. I was having a conversation with God about it and found myself asking why I might be feeling that I am falling short. What am I missing here, God?

Here is what I am hearing back….

First of all, we are always going to fall shy of that mark of perfection (if that isn’t an understatement, I don’t know what is). But that doesn’t mean we aren’t to try to give it our all. AND we must remember that we need HIM to do this THROUGH us. Otherwise, it’s all just surface junk. Right?

The second thing I feel the Lord trying to teach me is that edification is not limited to just lifting others up due to the strengths, talents, or unique “special stuff” that is positive and great about them. It’s also about loving them for ALL of who they are as children of the Lord.

It’s about pointing out what we see that is awesome, special, and great.

And it’s about making note of what makes that person a whole person and loving them through that imperfection.

It’s about loving in spite of the icky stuff.

Seeing the human child who is made up of so much more than special gifts, but who also has flaws in their life is not easy to do in a loving and encouraging (God-like) manner. Seeing others as special simply because Jesus lives inside of them? Now that’s really something! And celebrating that He loves them – as should we – just the way that they are – that’s what we are called to do.

Yes…Jesus loves us – He knows us down to the very last hair on our heads. It’s all important to Him. And He loves us – even on bad hair days.

I want to have a greater and more pure love for His people for all that they are! Yes, for their neat and special and unique traits, but also for those things that make them imperfect, or feel “ugly.”

We are bonded through that, you know. That imperfection – that falling short of the mark of utter divinity and purity is part of what makes us somewhat the same.

But most importantly, as followers after Jesus, we are bonded through Him in a way that compares to nothing else. That bond is the one that is most important – it is what transcends our human and flawed one. How awesome is that?

It may be true that we all are like snowflakes or fingerprints in a sense – no two of us are exactly alike when we pull apart our characteristics or attributes and look at them side by side. But I like that “same-ness” – that sense of “one” – that commonality that we share (the fact that one way we are the same is that we are different). And I LOVE that what binds us together even more is what comes from the One, true, and unchanging God who lives inside of us if we have accepted Christ as Savior and Lord.

THAT is what we ought to focus upon as we notice our differences in the things that are less than beautiful.

I shall continue to pray for the Lord to help me to love every last part – every last microscopic piece of my brothers and sisters in Christ. If there’s sin there, as there definitely is in myself, I don’t have to love that imperfection or flaw, but I can still love His creation as a whole.

In so doing, I am showing my love for my Savior and His most precious creations.

He may not leave us just as we are if we are seeking after Him with all our heart, mind, and soul – but He will love us just as we are.

Every single one of us.

Down to the very last hair.

Be it smooth or frizzy, straight or curly, neat and well-groomed, or wind-blown to the max. Jesus loves us.

If that doesn’t make all the hairs stand straight up – well, I just don’t know what will.

Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are
worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12: 7

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