Bare it All!

“The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame,” (Ge. 2:25).  There’s something powerful about being completely exposed and yet feeling no shame.  My friend Bridgid Dunn Weber is a woman who has learned that first hand.  “When I was first diagnosed with Alopecia, I felt embarrassed,” she explained.  “I did everything I could to hide it.  It made me feel like less of a woman.”

Alopecia is a condition that causes women (and men) to lose their hair.  For some people, they even lose their eyebrows and eyelashes.  Bridgid went for years trying to disguise her condition, using colored scalp sprays, hairpieces and eventually wigs.  Then one day she decided she was tired of hiding. 

“I used to think about that scripture in the bible that says a woman’s hair is her glory (1 Cor. 11:15) and then it hit me – hair is for her glory, not for God’s.  God loves me and sees me as glorious with or without hair.”

So Bridgid did a brave thing.  She went out for the very first time in public – bald.  Then she did it again.  And again.  Empowered, she took it one step further and let photographer Caroline Hall from Green Faerie Productions do a photo shoot … and posted it on Facebook.  

  

Not only do I applaud and admire my friend’s courage, I love the carefree sparkle and joy I see in her eyes.  Gone is the fear, the longing and the pain.  In their place are acceptance, joy and a new found freedom.  What’s noticeably missing is any sense of shame.

It got me thinking.  It seems to me we all wear some sort of wig, a disguise to hide behind.  Like my friend Bridgid, we’re afraid to truly be seen and be known, afraid of being judged and found wanting.  But the more we hide behind our ruse, the more we become trapped by it.  Maybe today is the day to look to Bridgid’s example and just throw off the wig!  After all, freedom and peace are waiting on the other side.

For further thought:  “Christ has set us free to live a free life.  So take your stand!  Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you,” (Gal. 5:1).  What is something you can do to be genuinely seen this week?

Want more information on Alopecia?  Check out the National Alopecia Areata Foundation on Facebook.  For more inspiring stories like these, subscribe to the Dented Fender in the upper right column.