My hair was a tangled mess again this morning. I got out my hairbrush to start on the knots while I was carrying on a conversation with God--and doing anything when you're talking to God will probably lead to startling new revelations. I remember asking Him to help me untangle my life every day just like I have to untangle my hair every day (multiple times a day). That was when He showed me a glimpse of how beautiful we are to Him, all of us.We get our lives tangled up every day, it seems like. We get dirty, messy, and do naughty things, but it doesn't change the way God sees us. I have been trying to wrap my mind around this lately, and God used an analogy to help me understand.

Just like any other woman, I have days when I don't feel so good about myself, and I have days when I just don't bother to even try to look nice. But a man who really loves me will see the beauty in me no matter how yucky the outside may seem on that day. I guess God sees us something like that, because we may give up on ourselves, but God will never give up on us.

Or think about the children analogy. They can go outside, be very naughty, and get all of their clothes all covered in dirt and mud, but somehow the naughty little child still has a beautiful quality about them that we can't ignore no matter how much dirt there is. God is the perfect Father, so how much more does He see us that way? Christ died to clean the dirt off of us, so we cannot dirty ourselves too much for God to still hold us, love us, and give us another chance.

It sounded so much more beautiful in my head, but there it is. God will see you as beautiful no matter how dumpy the clothes you dress in, how tangled and oily your hair is, how filthy your hands are, or how grimy your face is. You can't dirty yourself more than God can clean you, because He is bigger than our filth, our dirt, and our sin. Daddy God is always there to take care of things when we finish our dirty dance with sin, repent, and let Him clean us off again. You can't ask for His forgiveness too many times, His grace and love are so much bigger than we could ever imagine.

Picture this: a little girl wakes up and realizes her hair is a mess. She tossed and turned all night and it's all tangled up and knotted. Usually she waits until Mommy or Daddy can fix it for her, but today she's decided she's quite big enough to do it herself. She gets out the hairbrush and tries to brush it herself. But, since she is only two years old and doesn't quite have all her motor skills down yet, the harder she tries to untangle her hair the messier it gets. She gets more and more frustrated, and more and more determined to fix it herself. Finally, when her hair is so tangled she can't get the brush out of it, she sits on the floor and cries until Daddy comes to make it all better.

Why are we still like this? I somehow feel like I am supposed to be "big" enough to fix all of my own problems, but I can't do that. What's ironic is that we never seem to realize we can't handle things on our own until we actually make things worse by our trying. I think God knows this, and that is why He lets us try it our way first. He is a good Daddy, a kind Daddy, and a wise Daddy, and He will never make us let Him help. He will stand there quietly until we are ready to let Him help.

I don't understand how He does it, because I can't put myself through that kind of heartache. I can't just stand by and watch the people I love self-destruct, I feel like I have to step in and make things better for them. The problem with that is that if I think I can make other people's problems better I am just as deceived as the people who think they can make their own problems better. God is probably standing next to me amused that I just don't get it. But He waits patiently for me to get it and repent again.

He's not a pushy God. I think we are confused about this because many Christians are pushy and we think that their pushy-ness is an accurate representation of their God, but it's not. God is not pushy, God is gentle. God gave us a freewill and He lets us exercise it however we want.

But still, I can't believe the heartache that God let Himself in for when He created us. He is standing right there watching all of us cut ourselves and kill ourselves inside day after day, and that kind of pain would kill a lesser heart. Truly, God's heart is a magnificent, powerful, strong, thing. And how it must hurt Him.

All this to say, we make things worse when we think we can fix them without God. We will never outgrow God, but rather we will grow into being more and more obedient and relient. I guess this is where the children analogy falls apart, because God does not want us to "grow up and move out." God wants us to grow more and more into His little children, in love with Him and dependent on Him.