pink hair and white gloves

It's a two-fer day. I really should be drawing, but I have a bee in my bonnet so drawing is rather hard until the buzz is written down. And I guess this goes with the flow of the day before, in regards to the devotional book I received. I love the friend who picked the book truly, and the author seems very nice and very sincere, but there is a fundamental question that most of these devotionals for women and in general don't seem to clearly answer in this girl's opinion, or rather poorly, OR presume upon society's prejudices. The obvious outward appearance for a "bad girl" is tattoos and leather. Huh? A statement was made in the book to the effect that you don't have to have that "obviously bad" outward appearance to be someone who struggles with wrong inner desires. Whoa, whoa, whoa...first of all, that should be a given. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I happen to like leather and tattoos on men and women both. My daughter used to get furious when she wore a long, black Goth-type coat to the mall or school and got so cruelly labeled for being a witch, a freak, you name it...now we talked it over, and I told her, someone who wears black COULD be all those things, or just someone who likes the color. Even if they are, is that anyone else's business?

Here's the thing-at this point in my life, the loud, opinionated, sometimes very sensual, insistent female is the real deal, not the one who thinks it in her mind but won't open her mouth. I do not apologize for this. The real sin in my life is not being openly what I truly am. God will change what needs to be changed, but not to look like a 1950's carboard cut-out. Why is the church still living that fantasy? It's idiotic, and also in my humble opinion why people don't come. My daughter has a striped pink mohawk. It looks adorable. She's not an angry, rebellious teen. She's an intelligent kid who has dealt very maturely with a hugely difficult situation in our family, namely her brother going to prison. It's very likely when a stranger looks at her all they see is pink hair. So go ahead...but under that hair is one amazing kid. I never forget that when I see nose rings, spikes, leather, colorful tattoos, all the stuff we tend to ball up into a cliche of "rebellious teen". It's a lie. It's more about adults who are afraid to love what they don't understand. Maybe those kids are much closer to who we are than we are able to admit.

Heck, everyone is human. Everyone sins. Everyone makes mistakes. I just wish we could get past wanting to pidgeon hole people and help them make it through. Let the world see what we truly are because in the end, they do anyway.