I’m a chicken. I don’t want to deal with a bloody mess.
When I was 19 my mom joked that my eyebrows were sadbrows. They needed some waxing and shaping so that I didn’t look sad all of the time so I ventured out and got them taken care of and over the years, I have 99% stuck to waxing.
A few years ago, I gave threading a try but after feeling like I was being shot in the face with a pellet gun over and over, I decided that it wasn’t for me. I have gotten lazy and simply resorted to plucking for well over a year.
However I recently learned that a woman around the corner from me does sugaring in her home, so yesterday I bit the bullet and went. I was terrified of coming home like a bloody mess – or at least feeling like I was a bloody mess.
I have no clue how sugaring works. In fact, I should google it just to understand what the heck she was putting on my eyebrows because I have no idea. I noticed a difference, though, between waxing and sugaring.
With the waxing that I’ve had, they use a little wooden stick and you can feel it is very accurate as they trace it under your brow to get a clean line. No concerns.
Yesterday, however, it felt like she was slopping it all over the place and inside I was panicking. I fully expected my eyebrows to be gone entirely when she showed me in the mirror at the end.
Thankfully, they were still on my face and beautifully shaped, I must add. There was not a bloody mess, as I was aniticipating.
As she was doing it, I asked if she was using her finger (aka a sausage finger is what it felt like). She said yes and that she was moving the sugar and spreading it out to catch the stray hairs, or the unwanted hairs, into the sugar.
Though it felt like a goopy mess – a bloody mess – they looked great after. No more sad eyes.
I didn’t give it a second thought until this morning. I was forcing myself to list things in my gratitude journal that I was thankful for.
This has been a challenge for me as I feel like I’ve been in a depression hole for quite some time but this morning, I wrote that I was thankful for how the sugaring felt like a bloody mess until I saw the clean results.
Such a weird and funny thing.
That led my thoughts down the path to how God works. I think He’s in the business of sugaring.
Sometimes in life it feels like He is smearing the sugar all over the place…not precisely, not carefully, just a free for all. Sometimes it worries me that He is in a bloody mess business.
It can feel like He’s ripping my life apart…that in the end, I’m going to have nothing left, or at least nothing beautiful or nothing that I asked for in the first place.
When He is done and He holds the mirror up so I can see, I expect to be devastated with the end result.
But when it felt like He was out of control or had no control, it turns out He knew exactly what He was doing and He only ripped out the unwanted or unnecessary things.
Let me give you a specific example of this. There was one year in my life where I felt that every last life hair was being ripped out. I felt my life being ripped to shreds in a bloody mess.
It started when I discovered my first husband had kept some serious secrets from me. I asked him to move out while I sorted out what we/I was going to do.
Two weeks later I found out about AN affair.
Two weeks later I found out that there was an even bigger secret that had been discovered and in those hours, my family came to quickly move me and my baby out of the house and into my parents.
As my marriage was reeling, I went to sell the house and my realtor acted unethically and I lost $20,000 on the sale of my house. This resulted in having to consult a lawyer and going to the real estate board.
Can you hear the life hairs being ripped out? Just wait. It isn’t over.
Four weeks after signing a deal to purchase a house, that new house had a fire that would lead to 8 months of restoration. I had to continue to live with my parents and find a new place to work since I worked from my home.
I learned that there wasn’t just AN affair.
My estranged husband was arrested and you can’t imagine the confused feelings that surround that. I tried to visit so he wasn’t lonely all the while fighting a barrage of emotions.
As crazy as this sounds, when he was finally released, I gave my marriage another shot. I never wanted my daughter to say that I didn’t try my hardest. And boy, did I try.
When it became clear that some things hadn’t changed, I ended it…3 days before Christmas. I can tell you it was not a Happy New Year either.
After that year, if God had pulled out a mirror, I would have expected my life’s eyebrows to be butchered…massacred…a bloody mess.
Miracle of miracles, though, that isn’t what happened. Just like my eyebrows were red and swollen yesterday for a while after, my life was red and swollen. Still tender to the touch, stinging occasionally.
All those things were just God pulling the unwanted things into the sugar.
Whether it be tangible things like a marriage, a house, money; or emotions that He wanted to rip out or reshape like insecurity, fear, trust, faith.
I learned things:
He had made me stronger than I ever thought I was. Life could be good with less than what I thought. Life could be good without a man or marriage. I didn’t need as much money or as many things as I thought.
One step at a time and I can get through anything with Him. He has given me amazing family, friends AND clients to help me through. Peace. I finally experienced peace – and in the midst of toughness!
Maybe my life wasn’t a bloody mess after all.
Good doesn’t necessarily look the same for everybody.
I think God has so many different pictures of ‘good’.
But right now my good looks like this:
I met a man who is so tender, compassionate, patient, TRUSTWORTHY.
Summer and I have a crazy bond from being on our own together.
I always wanted 4 children and so it was perfect that Ted had 3 to bring into the picture. Summer calls him ‘daddy’ and means it with all of her heart.
Ted calls her ‘his daughter’ and means it with all of his heart.
Most of all, I see God carried me through so now I’ve got that in my memory bank the next time I need to be sugared.
How are you? How is life? Are you currently being sugared? Have you had your life sugared in the past? Did you feel like more was being ripped out than should be? Did your life feel like a bloody mess, too? Do you dread your next appointment?
I’m so sorry if you are in the midst of it right now. I hope you can trust that it isn’t the hot mess that it feels like it is. I hope you will be able to trust that God isn’t just smearing sugar everywhere with no plan or control.
He has a plan and He has a method.
I hope when it comes time for Him to hold up the mirror you will see the beauty that came from the pain.
The beauty that came from the mess.
The beauty that came from the confusion.
Not a bloody mess.
If you’ve been sugared, I hope you share your story. I hope you walk around proud of the work God did. I hope that story is in your memory bank for the next appointment.
Eyebrows are never finished…stray hairs are always sneaking in and tweaking is always required. Same with us. Rest assured, there will be more appointments in our future. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous.
I hope we can remember that our other appointments turned out well and brought good things. And I hope we look forward to what we will see in the mirror knowing that it isn’t to be dreaded.
And there won’t be a bloody mess so long as God is the One doing the sugaring.
Wow . just Wow…such a great analogy!!
thanks for messaging me…you don’t know what it means to hear feedback:)
Wow. I am sonsorry for all the sugaring pain you have endured. But praise God, you’re right, he redeems all things well. Doesn’t He?! ❤
It is crazy! And you know, you’d never choose it if He told you what was up ahead. No way. But where I am and what I’ve learned has been so good that I would have missed out. Thanks for emailing me. Means the world to hear a voice
Beautiful story. The sugaring analogy makes life’s messes rolling up together easy to picture. Two years ago my entire year was like a big ball of sugary wax and now everything has sorted and it’s so much better. I’m sorry we had to go through all of that but that’s what happens when we ‘try’ too hard I believe.
I’m so sorry that you’ve gone through a sugaring time…although even as I type that I wonder if we should be sorry???? I don’t know! I’m just glad that you can say that it has sorted itself out and is so much better. I completely hear you with trying to hard to believe. Thank you so so much for emailing me. You have no idea!
Love you!