Going Through The Change

Call me fickle, but I like to change my mind as often as I change my appearance. It's just my prerogative. Someone once asked me over the phone if I was the one with the straight blonde hair or the curly red hair? I answered, “Yes.” I have been both and more. It would have been just as logical to ask if I was the gal with the straight red hair and the Spanish accent (iQue raro!) Lately I've started to notice how my appearance is aging. Whether I like it or not, I seem to be going through “the change” right in step with the seasons. When the weather goes through its temperature spikes, my body chemistry also surges with hot flashes. It gives the term “hottie” a whole new meaning.

I also have warm memory flashes of the springtime of my youth. Back then the blossoming of love and being discovered by boys were the only things on my mind, that and the constant concern about my appearance. Besides continually changing my hair color, I had to have the perfect Coppertone tan. We didn’t have tanning beds back then, but we did have the next best (artificial) thing: sun lamps. Simply put, a sun lamp was just a huge infrared light bulb that we clamped onto furniture and presto, it burned one section of skin at a time. I was hot all right: red, hot and peeling. The only reason I was accepted socially was because most of my friends were also burned to a crisp or worse, they had a “natural” orange glow from the fake tanning products of the day. As I transition into the autumn of my life, I'm beginning to accept the fact that my freckles are never going to come together to form a beautiful tan. "I am what I am and it ain’t tan” is my new motto.

Fads change, seasons come and go, while the cycles of life continue on. I love that God created seasons so that Mother Nature—the Mother of all mothers—is perpetually in motion. Spring bursts forth and the earth is reborn, then all things living eventually die off by Winter. Year after year it is the same and yet different. The master plan repeats but the details vary, as though God Himself did not want to get stuck in a boring routine. Maybe Mama Nature is described as feminine because she reserves the right to consistently change her mind and her appearance at the same time, not unlike the way I operate.

How comforting to know that God remains constant in His faithfulness and His ultimate plans for our earthly days. The wise words of Ecclesiastes 3:1 'spring' to mind: “There is a time for every season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Whatever I am going through, I can remember that it is only for a season and there is an intentional purpose. Hair colors change (naturally or not), tans fade (or peel), but thankfully, God's love is for forever.