the musings of this nigerian gal

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

Have you ever wondered why Africans are the only one with our kind of hair?

All the other continents have long, silky, colorful hair that can be grown to touch their bombom. For us Africans, having our natural hair reach our shoulders is a great accomplishment.

I have wondered and wondered and grown dissatisfied and just kept on wondering.

I grew up watching movies like Cinderella and Home Alone where the women had no need to plait their hair but could even cut it and have it grown to their waist in a month.

I grew up reading novels where the guy falls in love as he watches the lady brush her hair in a hundred strokes. Where the guy inhale the scent of the said lady’s hair and loses his heart the moment he buries his face in her hair.

And as a result, I grew up wishing for powers to change my hair to those long mass of hair. I love my skin color, but that hair…At that time, I couldn’t quite settle between pink or blonde (yes, I was less than twelve years at that time). If I was given the chance now, I’ll chose auburn waves.

One day, I had finally had enough. I called God to bar and asked him, “how could you? How could you segregate the Africans by giving us a different kind of hair? And don’t tell me it has something to do with the climate. I am sure you would have figured out how to solve that issue. Why, just tell me why?”

And then God was like, “I knew what I was doing when I created you this way. It wasn’t a mistake. That other kind of hair isn’t the only beautiful hair I created. You are a masterpiece. I created you exactly as I intended in my heart.”

Rather than satiating me, I told him that he could have given us that hair and we would still have remained masterpieces. I even told him that I was going to ask him again when I get to Heaven. There all things shall be laid bare and since there’ll be no fear of misinterpretation and assumptions, I have better chance at understanding, because right now, I am not seeing the way in his reasoning. (Not me threatening God sha. 😹)

It’s been many months since that day and I still often bring it up to God. Just a slight mention. A quick reminder that I still didn’t understand his ways.

Until it happened.

A gentle thought dropped into my mind.

That if I trust in his heart towards me, his goodwill, his goodness towards me, then I should trust that he wasn’t capping when he calls me wonderfully and fearfully made.

I am not missing out because I am exactly how God intended me to be.

You see when someone is battling with low self-esteem, we tell the person to make a list of the things he/she thinks he/she is not and look at it and confess it until she believes it.

And on very good days, he/she can muster up the courage to believe it.

As someone who has been there and done that, I can tell you that those good days are rare and few in-between.

The reason is because in the first place I don’t believe that there’s anything good in me. And as long as that is the impression I have of myself, pretty words will just be like tying a bow on a pig.

This is why James tells us to look to the perfect law of liberty rather than the confidence of our works.

It is why Paul says that it is by looking at the one who saved us, we realize ourselves.

Me: Isn’t it fascinating?

Myself: What?

Me: To find oneself, one has to first look away from himself.

Because you know that outside of you — your feelings, your experiences, your thoughts — these are true.

You know and you can believe.

You know and you do believe.

It is by trusting in the one who made you that you can see yourself right.

That if he said he made you wonderfully and fearfully made, then that is exactly what you are.

There will always be questions. Why aren’t you slim enough? Why isn’t your face rounded enough? Why do guys gravitate towards your sister than they do you?

However, the more you look upon what God says about you, those questions won’t matter as much.

What would matter is that he calls you beautiful, so you are beautiful.

He calls you a masterpiece, so you are a masterpiece.

In him, we live and move and have our being.

He is enough, and he says you are enough, and that indeed is enough.