Love Means Noticing a Haircut

Last week I got a haircut. It wasn’t a major change, but when I left the salon, I felt sassy and pretty. The first thing I did when I left was head over to school to pick up M2. As I asked her about her day, I swished my hair around and waited for her to notice. She didn’t. 2 hours later, Catey and David got home from basketball practice. They hauled in their heavy book bags, grabbed their drinks for dinner and fiddled around with their phones. I continued to swish as I portioned out the dinner plates, but no one noticed my hair cut. The three teens at the dinner table talked about their day and the plans they had for the weekend. We spent about 20 minutes catching up and then 10 more cleaning up. At this point in the evening, my neck was getting tired from all the Taylor Swift-like head movement, but no one noticed my haircut. Pat was working late and when He got home, I had come pretty close to falling asleep. The lights were off in our bedroom, and my head was on the pillow but the TV was on. In the ambient light of the TV, Pat came in and the first thing he said was, “Wow, Babe…. You got a haircut.”

Pat Nelson loves me. My children do too, but Pat thinks about me all the time. He wants to know more about me. He is invested in my happiness. He notices little things about me that others don’t and he celebrates them. Before any of you begin to vomit from all the sugar I painted this picture with, I will get to the point.

When we are motivated by love in a relationship, we are more likely to notice beauty in the smallest things. When we invest our time, energy, brain and heart into loving and knowing someone, we get to participate in the joy of celebrating more often than we ever imagined.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to build relationships with teens and college students. I have had the privilege of serving as a mentor to young brides, moms and women in prison and I have often heard these people say that finding time to pray or read their bible is such a challenge. Many of us approach the thought of quiet time with the Lord as a chore or mandate. If my husband felt like “date night” was a box he was required to check off his honey-do list, intimacy would be difficult. If he believed that he had to punch a time clock to register the time he spent on listening to me talk, there would not be much shared joy for us as a couple.

He spends time with me and asks me questions and gives me gifts because He loves me. I would never require him to do any of it. We get to celebrate often because we genuinely love each other and realize the blessings and beauty in our midst. Our focus is set on each other instead of on ourselves.

When you and I are invested in a relationship with God, we enjoy spending time with Him. Quiet times are not mandated; they are privileges. When we study His word, we learn of His great character. The more we study, the more we see and the more we are hungry to learn even more.

I am in no way saying that you have to have a quiet time to be saved. All I am saying is that we don’t have to wait for heaven to enjoy the celebration. We are saved by our faith alone in Jesus, but when our hearts are invested in getting to know Him better, our eyes begin to see His beautiful touch in the small things.

Many of us approach our relationship with God the way my teenagers approach our relationship. The Nelson teens know that I love them. They know they belong to me. They enjoy the privileges of being a Nelson, but they are so consumed with busyness, homework, entertainment and the mirror that they aren’t getting to celebrate the beautiful little things that are happening all around them.

The teens would not have had a personal burst of joy if they had noticed my haircut…that would be stretching the analogy too far, but they do miss out on heaps of happiness because their focus is set inward instead of outward.

When we indulge in the richness of knowing God, we notice so much more. We get to celebrate His love for detail in the radiant fall leaves. We applaud His humor when the family dog makes us laugh. We are reminded of His consistency when the sun comes up every morning. We see His miraculous hand when He heals our sick friends. We honestly rejoice in our own sufferings as they remind us of all Jesus suffered for us. When we are hungry for more of Him, we get filled, and in our fullness, we participate in the kingdom that has already come.

When we are in love with Him, we don’t need to be reminded of how great He is. We begin to notice and celebrate the small things even in the ambient light at the end of a long day.

“Honor and majesty surround him; strength and beauty fill his sanctuary.” Psalm 96:6 (NLT)

“The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness;
 His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
 therefore, I will hope in Him!”

Lamentations 3:22-24 (NLT)