changing fire

The other day, I started parting my hair on the other side. I've parted it on the left since high school. But earlier this week, I thought to myself, What about the right side?

Sometimes we do things just because it's the way we've always done them. Honestly, I think we can spend our entire lives like that if we're not careful.

No one has noticed my hair. It's not like I really know what side people part their hair on - even my closest friends. I even had to tell my husband it was different. My feelings weren't hurt, though. It's just one of those details that only you notice about yourself. I needed the change just for me, anyway.

The process of my decision was silly, though. As if people were going to care. I looked at how my hair framed my face, how it fell around my chin, and how it seemed to change the color a slight bit. At first, I even got so nervous about it that I wondered if it's socially acceptable for people to part their hair on the right side. Maybe this was some taboo I hadn't paid attention to, like when I was in middle school and didn't realize that perms weren't cool anymore until I was about two painful years late. In fact, I even had to physically stop myself from googling "acceptable hair parts 2009."

Rachael, calm down. No one cares but you. My head came in and spoke some reason to that crazy heart of mine. Sometimes my head and my heart are so disconnected I feel like I have schizophrenia. Does everyone else have this constant war of feelings going on all the time, or is it just me?

From my experience in life so far, it's probably just me. But I'm okay with that.

When I parted my hair on the opposite side, though, I noticed something.

First of all, my hair is purely awful without a straightener. Bless all the women who existed before straighteners did. However, since I had been parting my hair in the same way for some number of years, I had mastered making it look somewhat decent in that style. Now, though, my hair is different, and the majority of it rests on the left side of my head instead of the right. The first time I washed and styled it with my new part, I noticed that even though I went about my same routine, the right side of my head looked terrible. It wouldn't straighten out for anything; it was like I had a shirt I was trying to iron that had been wadded up for months. My hair has been this way for a week or so now, and it's still not really normal yet. I know it will be, though; the right side just hasn't ever been exposed like it is now.

Isn't it amazing how ugly we can remain when we don't expose ourselves?

And I'm not talking about going out and telling the world all our problems, bearing our souls to people we barely know. I'm talking about hiding from ourselves.

Sometimes we do things just because it's the way we've always done them. And why?

because it's safe.

Often, we like the way things are in our bubble of a life. But what if the thing we really need is for our bubble to pop so we can finally live? Bubbles can suffocate people.

I heard something interesting in church today: "Salvation is not an association." So many people (especially in the Bible Belt...I live here, so I can say that) just saunter their way through life, thinking if they just go to church and throw in a prayer or two before meals that they're spending eternity in heaven.

It doesn't work that way, though.

In Hebrews, God is described as a consuming fire. Last time I checked, no consuming fire I ever saw just sat around in some church pew and threw a few dollars in an offering plate when it passed by. No, fires destroy, burn and melt. They spread, warm, lead, and light. When man discovered fire, it was radical. Likewise, when a man discovers Jesus, it should be just as radical.

He pushes us to change, to expose, to question the things we do just because we've always done them. And if he doesn't do that for you, you've found the wrong Jesus.

It's better to not claim him at all than to pretend you believe when you're really still holding back half the hair on your head. And I've got news: whatever you keep holding back - it's still ugly under there.

So face it. Search for the real manger this Christmas season, the one that holds the fire inside. And consider parting your hair on a different side for a change.