She stood back and inspected her work.
“I don't think your hair will do that,” she said. “Huh?” my fourteen-year-old self wondered. I was at a "real" salon for a "real" hair style. I did not end up with the chic ’20's bob I had imagined.
Here in spring 2020, in the Tipton basement/barbershop, I got to see things from the other side for the chair and discovered that my husband’s “hair will not do that” over the course of a two-hour haircut! Yes, I appreciate, more than ever, the skills and training of hair stylists.
With hair-cutting challenges, teaching of academics, and cooking everything from scratch, it feels as if each day we face challenges that take us out of our areas of particular knowledge. Out of necessity we are learning new skills (some more successfully than others).
Our knowledge can feel inadequate. Our addled brains feel slow, adding to the frustrations we’re all dealing with. We lack certain skills just as we lack certainty about anything during this time of a world in crisis. Yet we can trust that Christ is present for us no matter the state of our skills or talents. Not because of what we know or don’t know but because Jesus knows how to connect with us.
It brings to mind the reflections or the Rev. John Thorpe from the Spring 2020
The Anglican Digest
. Jesus’ disciple Peter was a fisherman whose experience and knowledge of anything outside of fishing seems pretty limited from our perspective, but Jesus was able to connect with him on a profound and life-altering level. As with Peter, “… each person is capable of receiving the presence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of having their world inhabited and expanded by Jesus.”
It is a struggle every day, but I try to remind myself that on the other side of adversity and affliction there is the love and patience of Jesus.
Isaiah 30: 18-21
Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and water of affliction yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your teacher…
Mary Beth
