Image

I am technically a middle-aged woman now. My hair has almost more gray than brown, and yet when I look in the mirror I still see an attractive person.

About 12 years ago, I decided I would start dying my hair so that the gray would not show. I am a brunette and so I chose a shade of brown. The dye did strange things to my hair.  All of a sudden I had a lot more red showing and a lot less brown. The gray was gone but in it's place reddish tones appeared.

I was on a vacation in Utah when I saw my image and could not believe it. I was riding in the backseat of the truck and the sun was shining from the west. I glanced in the external mirror and saw a redhead. Oh weird. Oh my, that is me!!

I came home and never dyed my hair again. There is a lot of comfort in having gray hair. It says, " I am proud of who I am".

I have noticed so many Hollywood starlets changing their appearance to remain younger. My sisters laugh because I will say, "She did something to her face!" The telling sign is when your favorite star is on the front of a magazine and you have to do a double-take to recognize them. Oh, how we have let our insecurities drive us.

In Genesis1:27, it says:
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Somewhere along the way we have accepted the fact that God's image is not good enough. We want to look better, look younger, look thinner, look taller. I wonder what God thinks about all of this? He designed us this way for a reason; to age at a certain rate, to get gray and wrinkled and slower in our pace.

Maybe we should embrace our age. Love our gray hair. Brag about our laugh lines and crows feet. Be happy that we are not at the front of the pack anymore. I mean, haven't we earned it? We have lived full, productive lives; raising children, working, serving, providing, and giving.

Can you imagine God being a young twenty-something? I think the image God gave me is good, really good. I want my insecurities to be less and God's image to be more.