Sunday Devotion: Mail From God

Janet Rubin


Bad haircut. Need I say more?

Knowing my haircut appointment was fast-approaching, I spent the week perusing one of those hairstyles magazines, dog-earring the pages and studying as if for an important exam. I’d stand by the mirror, scrutinizing my reflection, doing that silly thing woman do, where they sort of hold their hair up to see what it will look like shorter (doesn’t work, trust me).

Fairly confident that I knew what cut I wanted, I went to my appointment. My dear stylist did exactly what I asked her. It didn’t look very good in the mirror, but I chalked that up to the fact that I’m never happy until I go home and fix it up myself. So I went home, fixed it up… and found that it still didn’t look good. So I went back asked her to hack off some more. Again, she did what I asked. And now… I look like a man. Ugh.

So here I was, puttering around the house and trying to mentally work through the situation. I reminded myself that inner beauty is most important, that hair grows back, and that several women I know are bald right now as a result of chemo and I have no right to complain. Still, I was feeling down, and actually considered skipping church tomorrow rather than see people.

Then I went to my mailbox. In it was a mailing from Christian author, Ginger Garrett, promoting her new book, Beauty Secrets of the Bible. Enclosed in her letter was a little card with a quote on it. Here is part of what it said:

“Jesus, who was the essence of beauty, allowed himself to be disfigured so he could save us…. Beauty sacrificed himself for us. We cannot buy beauty, but Beauty has bought us. We are redeemed women, ransomed from shame. We can walk proudly because we don’t have to exhaust ourselves to find beauty; Beauty found us first and saved us forever.”

How perfect was that? Just the thing I needed to read. Jesus took my shame. I am God’s beautiful daughter, washed in the blood of the Lamb and clothed in white, whether I have good hair or bad hair or no hair.

I love how these things happen—how God in His marvelous way—uses someone like Ginger to bless someone like me, just when I need it, even if the thing I'm fretting about it something silly like a haircut. We never know how God will use our writing!

So, I’m counting my blessings. I’m loved, I’m lovely… and I’m a writer, which means I can hide behind and monitor and post any nice picture of myself that I want! And tomorrow? Yes, I'll go to church and sing praises to the One who took my sin and shame.

Isaiah 53:2-5
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.