The other day while our 2 year old was “napping,” she somehow got into the top changing table drawer and pulled out the diaper cream. Now, this is not any ordinary diaper cream. No, no, no. It is GERMAN diaper cream. It is the thickest, (almost putty-like) cream I have ever used. We dread even touching it because it is hard to wipe off fingers. But boy, does it clear up a rash in no time flat!
She opened up that diaper cream and proceeding to spend the duration of her nap wiping it all over her body, crib and hair. She smeared the cream around the edge of the crib, all over her clothes, her arms, legs, face and even hair! We could hear her talking, so knew she hadn’t really taken a nap. But, like any sane parents we let her be and enjoyed the quiet time to ourselves. When her naptime was over, we noticed she looked a little different…the picture doesn’t even do it justice!
It took us over a week to get all the diaper cream out of her hair. We had to wash and repeat, tried three different shampoos, and finally it came out! We had to rely on the wisdom of other parents who could give us suggestions on how to get this cream out and have her hair looking normal again. This got us thinking (certainly not at first, but eventually) that we act the same way as God’s children. Especially those of us who are new missionaries and recently moved to a new country. We reach and try for different things and sometimes we get ourselves into a big mess. God reminded us through this situation that our curiosity can (and often does) have consequences. For about a week after the “incident,” people in public would ask about her hair and we had to explain. The story made people laugh, and some even commented how their toddlers did the same exact thing with the same cream! People really showed us grace in a culture where how you “look” really matters.
Comb after comb, bath after bath, normalcy has returned. But the process of getting there is what refines us. Don’t you think?
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