Chocolate Wax, Beauty, and Submission

I was sitting in front of my mirror preparing to do one of the most painful things I can do to myself...waxing. You see, I suffer from a bit of hirsutism, at least on half of my face (an unfortunate side affect of viral encephalitis - chicke pox gone horribly awry - and PCOS. Every 2 weeks I wax my brows and half mustache, and every 6 months I wax my whole face, half-beard and all. Today was a wax everything day. Ouch!

My wax smells like chocolate. Needless to say, I don't eat a lot of chocolate. I guess if it smelled like coca-cola, I may be deterred to ever drink the stuff again. But I wax to rid myself of unwanted hair. It hurts, but I do it in the name of beauty. Of course, this thought started a whole set of theories about beautification. We women do a lot of painful things in the name of beauty. Waxing, plucking, lifts, tucks...all so we can feel beautiful.

Exercise is a good example. We push ourselves to the breaking point to gain endurance, tear our muscles to rebuild them, "feel the burn" and the pain to grow stronger, to be beautiful. And we put ourselves through this daily, willingly. We submit to our need for something better.

This is the same with ttwd. What's the point of ttwd? So we can be beautiful for our husband's to behold? So we can be proud of the women we are? Whatever your reason, think about what this really is. What's more beautiful than stripping away the hardness, the distancing, the anger, and defiance to reveal the soft, pliable, submissive, and inwardly beautiful woman that we all are inside? What gets us there is the pain. It's emotional battle with ourselves to turn away from our upbringing and the peer pressure that we call television. Where is the reality show that shows us how we should behave as a woman, a wife, and a mother? Morality doesn't sell, but I digress...

Ttwd is about the emotional pain of being open - laid bare, without walls, without the barriers that keep us apart. Ttwd is about the physical pain of being punished to help us turn away from the things that keep us apart. Ttwd is about the pain of submission. The need to be right, be strong, be able to stand on our own, stands in our way of submitting fully. Those things keep us from true beauty. To submit, you must let go, and that can be quite painful. But it's beautiful in the end, and you can't get any closer than that.

And with that, I just want to say that Hubby will be home in 13 hours. YAY!!!! I look forward to reconnecting and getting back to ttwd. I'm off to get ready to rehearse for church. (((hugs)))