Ok. So. I thought it was time to maybe . . . grow up.  Well, at least my blog!  I sensed that 3 years as the Crispy Mom was changing for me and so my blog is following.  It seemed to be moving away from just mom topics to life topics, and I felt a tug in me to really connect with a larger group. So, here it is, Group.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Speaking of grown up, I did a very grown up thing this last week.  I dyed my hair back to its natural color.  I know, I know.  For those of you who never see me in person, you will be shocked to know that for the last several years, I have looked nothing like the picture on this website.  My hair went from dark brown, to light brown, to brown with blond highlights, to reddish brown, and then back down the brunette trail as I realized I felt more like myself that way.  Who would have thought?  In the midst of my life crisis, apparently, I was having a hair crisis as well.  Fascinating, I know.

But, it did get me thinking.  Watch out. 

Isn’t it funny how we sometimes alter things about ourselves as our lives go into a state of chaos?  As if we need one more crazy example of losing it, we’ll dye our hair, or change our wardrobe, or go totally Goth—okay, so I know I can’t pull that off.  It’s hard to be Goth with dimples.

As I was sitting in Raymond’s chair, washing my red away, I thought about my grandmothers.  Both of them are still living. One in her late eighties, the other in her early nineties.  One whose hair was so black, it never grayed until her early eighties (despite the fact that we all thought she had been dyeing it for years).  The other whose hair turned completely gray by the time she was twenty-two.  Of course, I wasn’t alive at the time to confirm that fact.  But, I can say with great clarity that I have been witness to it since at least her fifties, which is still very young to completely gray-out. Still, each of them was okay with what they had.

There’s something to be said for just being you.  The person God made you to be.  There’s something to be said with going along with His plan regardless of how it makes us feel at the time. I’ve spent a lot of time this last year getting acquainted with that feeling.  Letting Him run the show, despite how desperately I want to take over.  It taught me two very important things about myself:

1.  I am a driven woman.  And, that is not always a good thing.  Sometimes being driven can drive you completely insane if you don’t have a focus for all that energy.  And focusing it on the wrong things will become more frustrating as you learn they were a waste of time.  Focus on God first, what His plan is for you, then drive on.
2. I can trust God with every aspect of my life.  That was incredibly hard for me.  I was raised to be as independent as humanly possible.  And, that is not always a good thing.  The main thing I believe God wanted from me was the one thing I couldn’t mentally allow: complete trust.  That is, until He put me in a position in which the ONLY thing I could do was trust Him.  Genius, of course.

If your year has been anything like mine, I pray that you’ve grown closer to God in the process and learned your place in His world. He has a plan for you.  Truly.  Let’s not mess up His plan with vain attempts at significance, or acceptance, or belonging.  Let’s put all the cover ups aside and lean into His cover instead.