Jul 30 2011
New Haircut
Lauren has been Annada’s awesome nanny for the last year (and two more days before becoming a YearOne intern!).
Lauren is a woman of many talents including journalism, photography and cutting hair. So when we heard Lauren was cutting hair at our church’s community market, we decided to take Annada to get a haircut that would be cooler in the heat.
At first Annada was all about it. But when she was done and saw her hair on the ground she started to cry.
“Why, Mommy? Why would you do that to me?” she cried.
I could see that the situation was going to get worse as people started coming over to check out what was happening (Annada’s haircut had attracted onlookers). So I took her inside to go to the bathroom.
She cried all the way to the restroom and then continued to shake her head and ask me, “Why mommy? Why did you do this?!” as she looked in the mirror. I was beginning to have some major guilt for cutting her hair.
Suddenly she stopped. She shook her head again and watched it whirl around her cheeks. She paused. She shook her head again. “I like it!” she exclaimed.
From that moment on, Annada was all smiles about her new haircut.
We went on to have a blast at the market. We danced together to the band, checked out the artisan booths and ate from a local food truck.
The market had a community art project inviting people write about something in their life that broke them and invited them to ask God to redeem it. I pulled out a tile and write a note about the pain of infertility. Then Annada came up behind me and wanted to write something on my tile too. She took out a black marker and started scribbling. She covered over every word I had written.
The moment hit me as profound. Here I was honoring pain of my barrenness and my daughter was drawing over it. I wept, thanking God for his graciousness to me. Then Annada and I took a hammer and smashed the tile. A piece flew up and cut the back of my hand. I think that is fitting too.
The pieces we broke were then picked up by artists and placed into a beautiful mural.