I am Yours

First off, let me apologize if this post if kind of long but I wanted to share a story. :) So last week I found myself in a situation I thought I had long gotten over. It all started when I was out today shopping around for some mother's day things. It was a beautiful day and so of course people would be out just as I was enjoying it. I was wearing a hat with no scarf underneath and was feeling pretty good about everything. However, almost immediately upon seeing the crowds of people my entire body froze in my car. I began looking at myself in the mirror and became so self conscious of how I looked that it almost brought me to tears. I ended up sitting in my car for 10 minutes waiting for the crowd to leave before I felt strong enough to exit my car, I know I know I'm pitiful. Many times I don't wear just a head scarf out for the shear fact that I know with just a hat it's not as obvious that I have no hair. But today I had a hat on but I was over whelmed with the feeling that people were staring at me and I know that not that many people are staring at me and that I'm probably just over doing it but I still many times, like today feel like that. In fact I don't think its actually the fact that people are actually looking at me because I look weird, its the fact that I don't look like everyone else. My eye lashes are still in tack but I have few eye brows left and usually try and draw them on. I have many times stood in front of the mirror and cryed at the image I see. It's not me, I dont' have my hair and its over whelming at how much that can take from you. But it makes me look at who am I really, I am not my hair, I"m not my long eye lashes, I"m not my eyebrows, or my chest. I am not defined by any of these but yet I feel as if it keeps me trapped unable to escape. I find myself not wanting to go into places like restaurants and the mall with my friends (who may I add have been amazing and so wonderful in encouraging me through this whole thing.) because I feel like the odd ball of the group. Before we go in any where everyone fixes their hair and I find myself jealous many times of them and I know that's wrong....I miss my hair and how much comfort I never realized until now that it brought me. I know that sounds so crazy and probably stupid to many but its the power cancer can have over you when you let it. Its so easy to let this disease take so much more than your hair, your energy, or your health from you, It can take your hope if you let it. Its hard to explain the anxiety of not looking like everyone else. I feel at time like the 16 year old girl I once was, who was always worried about what I looked like, constantly brushing my hair and looking in the mirror. Now that seems so petty to me, for its not about looks though many times we dont' even realize how much emphasis we put on how we look.


After all this I was reading my bible and came to


Psalm 139: 13 "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb". and


Psalm 139:15 "You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb"


I tell myself God knows everything about me. He knows all the hairs that were once on my head and he knows all the ones that will be once my hair is back. He sees my heart, my struggles, and my pain. And I know he knows and is always reminding me that I am his. I am still beautiful though by the world's standards I may not be but I am wonderfully and perfectly made in his image. My struggle is that it is hard to tell myself and make myself believe, especially as a 25 year old woman.


I feel after everything that I am stronger now than I was at the beginning of this but I still struggle. I still want God to talk to me, right now on my time, give me answers, make this all go away. But through all of this I am learning patience because you see I'm not on my time but his. And I, like so many others forget that sometimes. I've had people tell me that I'm so "strong" but let me tell you I dont' feel strong many times. But if that's how it seems I want everyone to know its because of my trust in a God that never fails and my faith in knowing he is always there. You see I know in the end hair or no hair, in sickness, through it all....I am his. :)