lenten worms and easter butterflies

We moved mama back to the mountains this week. As I moved through the home of my teenagerdom, I was caught off guard by the pictures of me showing the progression of different hairdos that marked my growing into adulthood.
Those were the days before curling irons, hot rollers, hand held hair dryers... those were the days that required serious commitment to the ideal of hair perfection. I routinely slept on rollers... wire brush rollers that had no give... and perfected the art of sleeping with my neck suspended above the pillow, supported by those prickly cylinders. When sponge rollers were invented, all the girls tried them and dismissed them because the curls weren’t uniform... were squishy just like the rollers. Some of my friends whose daddies drank beer ( there weren’t many) rolled their long hair on beer cans and used the beer as a setting lotion. I was envious of their long, sleek, shiny hair that smelled faintly of beer. Sometimes on Saturday night, my sister and I would haul out the hair dryers we got with green stamps... soft vinyl hoods attached to a base that blew hot air over your wet head until it was dry... then slept on the rollers so our hairdos would be fresh the next morning. After teasing our hair into the desired shape ( teasing was the process of back combing sections of hair until they were uniformly stiff... a forerunner of dreadlocks), we would spray it with hair spray until it would stay in place through whatever windstorms came our way.
I went to the cabin behind the main house to get some canning jars to load on the trailer. My gym shorts that I wore in college were lying on the kitchen counter. I went to a state school... Valdosta State College... and P.E. was required. I was the only person in my tennis class passed as a mercy to my teacher. My nearsightedness made it impossible to co-ordinate eyes and hands in time to hit that little ball. Golf was my best P.E. class... that ball stayed in place until I hit it. We had to change into a special uniform for P.E.... navy blue Bermuda shorts with an adjustable waistband... a white blouse with the school insignia in navy blue... tennis shoes. When we walked to the gym or on campus in this outfit, we were required to wear a raincoat over it. I always saw myself as chubby in those shorts... felt bumpy rather than sleek. But when I held those faded blue shorts up, they were small... a size 6.
I was a butterfly who saw herself as a worm... I was both worm and butterfly... not one or the other but both. I was beautiful... I was awkward... I was like my hair... smooth on the surface and knotted underneath by teasing... I was slender... I was overflowing with my insecurities and unease... I was full of promise... I was an empty vessel slowly filling with knowledge and grace... I was my past, present and future looking through a darkened glass at the uncertain image of myself... an image only God could see clearly. As I look at those pictures and gym shorts, I can see now what God saw and I weep for all that was and all that was to come... and I give thanks for worms and butterflies.
My Lenten prayer, an old hymn... Alas, and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I? At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the Light, and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day.