The Flame Within

This morning I grabbed my hairspray spritz bottle from underneath the bathroom sink to spray on my hair.  As I sprayed, sprayed, and sprayed some more, I soon began to realize something wasn’t right.  I noticed, the usual hairspray scent was missing.  It then hit me, this isn’t hair spray, this is peroxide.  That’s right… Unbeknownst to myself, I had been spraying peroxide all over my hair.  

Let me explain, I keep peroxide in the laundry room, in an empty hairspray bottle, the peroxide is used to treat any type of protein stain on my children’s clothing.  Someone, took the hair spray bottle filled with peroxide from the laundry room and placed it under the bathroom sink with my other hairspray bottles.  (I’m pretty sure the culprit was my husband, even though I informed him why the hairspray bottle was in the laundry room and that is was filled with peroxide.  Isn’t that what husbands are for, to keep life interesting?)  Unfortunately this  event turned my morning upside down.  I was late to Bible Study… Because I had to rewash my hair.

Needless to say peroxide and hairspray have vastly different chemicals and uses!!!

As I sat in Bible study, a spiritual analogy came to me.  I believe God allowed me to endure the little incident with the peroxide, to help me understand an important spiritual analogy.  God used this unfortunate circumstance to help me to make sense of a life circumstance, I have been struggling with for quite some time.  

Here’s the analogy…

Although the bottles were the exact same on the outside, they were vastly different on the inside.  

For several years, I have been in a friendship with another individual.  On the outside, we’re very much alike!  We look alike, we’re both friendly and outgoing people, we’re both extroverts, many things in our lives are quite similar, yet, our insides are vastly different.  In a way, due to the outer similarities, I have been attempting to force a friendship.  God revealed this to me through peroxide in a hairspray bottle.  Despite our wide array of similarities, our hearts maintain very different world views, priorities, and goals.    

Several weeks ago, God introduced me to another friend.  This friend on the outside, couldn’t be more different than myself.  She is black… I am white!  She is a size 2… I am not!  She once was a model… not me!  She is very quiet…  I am loud.  She talks very little…  I never stop talking.  She’s an introvert… I’m an extrovert. Our past life experiences, couldn’t be any more different.  Our outside selves, never attracted us to one another.  To be completely honest, I never thought the two of us would connect on such a “deep” spiritual level.  God placed her in my van, along with several other “amazing” women, as the five us completed a week long, on-campus counseling course at Liberty University.  God was working in my heart throughout the week in ways I couldn’t have “EVER” fathomed.  (This is something I’ll blog about in the near future!)  One night, this girl, very different from myself, my new friend Shamekka, obeyed the Holy Spirit and took time to speak God’s love into my spirit, when I absolutely NEEDED it most.  In the hallway of our hotel, she became God to my weary heart.  (Thank you Shamekka for stepping out of your comfort zone and allowing yourself to be used as a vessel for God, to encourage my soul!  I’ll never forget the healing, God worked in my heart through the words, you were willing to speak, on His behalf!)  You know what…  God allowed me to become God to her as well!  Our spirits connected!  Right there in that hallway, with folks walking by, we held hands, we fervently lifted one another up to the Lord.  “Picture the two of us standing in a green carpeted hallway, folks walking around us, holding hands, and endless tears of God’s “OVERWHELMING” love falling from our eyes.” Our hearts… connected!  She said to me, “You know what?  I was immediately attracted to you.  Your love for God, is so obvious to the world around you.  You see, what we see in one another, is a direct reflection of what is in our very own hearts.  The good, the genuine love for those around you, our love for the Father.  We are attracted to the very real beauty of the Loving Heavenly Father in our own hearts.”  

It was a Divine Intervention…

The love we have for the Heavenly Father, our devout devotion to love, please, and obey God as we prepare for the Christian counseling field, and our love for God’s people are similar and our spirits are very much identical!  

Why do I tell you this?

You see… I almost missed out on an amazing friendship.  A friendship, God is using to help me grow in my spiritual life, a relationship where God is pouring out His love to me through her and vise-versa.  God has blessed me with a friendship, so spiritually sensitive, genuine, who understands the depths of God’s love, and a dear sister in Christ!

The sad thing is…

I could have missed out on this beautiful, God-fearing, and encouraging relationship….

Why?

Simply because… On the outside, we’re very much different.

It is my prayer… that I will be able to begin to truly look beyond the outside of man… to the spirit within.  

I pray that I will begin to discern the hairspray from the peroxide!!!

1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.  The Lord does not look at the things people look at.  People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Mathew 5:16, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.”

Hebrews 13:2, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angles without know it.”

Friends, this is my prayer for you, as well!

Blessings,

Crystal