My nails were really bugging me the other day. I don’t have the prettiest finger nails and a manicure wasn’t in the budget so I decided to buy a pack of pre stick nails. They look so pretty on my hands and from a distance they look real. OK, from a far distance they look real. The problem is when my hands got anywhere near my head strands of hair would get stuck in the glue under the nail. I could either rip my hair out of my head or rip the nail off my finger.
I paid five whole dollars for these nails! I now have a small bald spot on the side of my head.
It’s a bit embarrassing when your hair is stuck to your fingernails. Sorry men you will just have to take my word for this.
I went to work wearing a new black dress and my fake French manicure nails feeling pretty good about myself until one of the nails started to fall off. I decided to tape it back on with scotch tape. A few minutes later I looked in a mirror and realized the color of my sleeveless dress was bleeding onto my armpit. Did I mention my dress was black? So here I was with falling off fake nails, strands of hair attached to them, one with scotch tape and black armpits. What a site!
My daughter told me I had attained ghetto. Honestly Gems these things do not seem that crazy in my head but as I write them I truly begin to worry about myself :)
This scene reminded me of a time when I was a marketing rep and I was at a business women’s breakfast that I didn’t feel adequate to attend in the first place. I only went to market new business. I had on black dress pants that zipped on the side. When I went into the bathroom I realized my pants were on backwards. This could only mean I had a fat stomach or a flat butt, either one was not good.
Back to my original story…
As always s the Lord gave me a jewel to my dilemma. He reminded me that putting on fake nails and trying to pull it off like they are real will not work anymore than acting like you have no problems because you’re a Christian.
From a distance you may look real, for instance you may go to church on Sunday mention Jesus here or there or sing in the choir. But what if someone were to follow you around more closely what would they see? Would things start to get stuck to the ”you “underneath? Kind of like the glue under my fake nails.
It’s suddenly not as attractive or appealing to have your real stuff hanging off your Christian facade.
Gems sometimes Christians act like they have it all together and they don’t let people see the real them. We feel like we can’t let people know when we’re struggling because we are a Christian. We begin this facade about who we really are because we think there’s some expectation we need to live up to. We should attract people to us but once they get a close up look they should realize we’re not perfect but we are real.
I went up to the school for a Mother’s Day tea with my youngest grandson but before I went to his class I sat with my older grandson for breakfast in the school cafeteria. I struck up a conversation with the little boy sitting next to my grandson and asked his name. As soon as I did the boy next to him said “my names Harvey, and I’m nice.” He looked at me like I might not believe him and said it again “I really am nice” he held an apple and explained “this is for my teacher!”
He was nice and he had an apple to prove it, he was not faking it.
How great it would be if we could be that honest with each other.
Hi, I’m Gena and I love God but sometimes I’m a ninny head.
We all struggle with things in our life. Some are big like drugs or sexual addictions and some are smaller in comparison like little white lies or gossiping but they are all things that when the world sees them they make Christians look fake.
Maybe we have been looking at fake Christians so long we have a hard time seeing a real one.
I have a family portrait from years ago and we are all smiling in the picture but the truth is we were miserable. Actually my ex husband and I had a HUGE fight an hour before that picture was taken and it was all we could do to stand next to each other never less smile.
Gems if you learn anything from reading Gena’s jewels I pray you will learn it’s OK to be real. I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not for God to love me and neither do you. I pray daily for the power of the Holy Spirit to give me the strength to do the right thing and I know God forgives me when I mess up.
Let’s not let the church become a pack of fake nails. Jesus said in Luke 5:32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”
That’s all of us!
What I learned from my nails is there’s nothing better than the real thing. While I had them on they got in the way, they pulled out my hair, they were fragile and kept me at a distance from those around me. Up close I wasn’t fooling anyone. When I pulled them all off my fingers worked a whole lot better.
It’s just like sin, when you stay in it it leads to heart ache, rejection, isolation and phoniness. When you act like you have none it keeps you from looking real and keeps you from getting close to others.
When you take it off and give it to God He forgives you and frees you to forgive yourself and others.
We don’t have to fake it to make it we just have to be real and God will do the rest.
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