first shave

I remember my first shave.

No, I do not have a mustache. Although, I know women who do.

I mean my first leg shave. I was young (but hairy). My father's nickname is Hair Bag, and well ... you draw the conclusion.

The day was a scorcher (yes, we have those in Colorado). My brother's and I went to the pool for an afternoon swim. They were decked out in their manly trousers, with uber hairy legs and arms. I was decked out my turquoise one-piece - with uber hairy legs and arms. It was straight. It was black. And it was long.


Still, I was just a little girl, at the age of eleven. What did I care about shaving legs?


None at all, until that day.


Peer pressure and relentless teasing will do strange things to pubescent kids. Some go so far as to get wild piercings or not eat, putting their health and the sanity of their parents at risk. Fortunately, the only thing at risk here was some wiry leg hair, and my pride.


Later that day, I asked my mom if I could shave. I didn't have a razor, and even if I did, I'd be afraid I'd cut myself and then she'd be mad at me when I bled all over the carpet and didn't ask for permission. Mom liked us to ask permission for everything. Even if we wanted to eat a few snack crackers.


Still, Mom was pretty observant. She knew my father was half monkey and that I had inadvertently inherited the trait, even though my chromosomes cried for different circumstances. She agreed to let me shave, if I promised I'd be careful, clean the razor, and keep up the shaving once I started.


"It's gross when people have already started shaving their legs and don't keep up with the task," she scolded me like I had already committed the offense.


No problem, Mom. I think the man jokes were enough to keep me shaving every day until the day I die.


My first shave consisted of opening a pack of new razor blades, and inserting it into the old fashioned razor. With fear and trepidation, I ran the new razor across my scrawny, hair infested legs.


Oooouuuuuchhhh!!!


With more fear and trepidation (and wisdom), I lathered up my scrawny, less hair infested legs and proceeded. One hot water heater of water later, I began to look like a model (or so I hoped). Silky, smooth, white skin came shining through. Afterwards, I dabbed some of Mom's Johnson & Johnson baby lotion on.


I was a new creature.


One that couldn't be laughed at and referred to as an ape. One that was just like her peers, which so often becomes an adolescent's goal.


I guess for men, it's different. Having ugly, wiry hair is cool.

Studly.

Bursting with testosterone.

It  means you've reached the pinnacle of manhood. In womanhood, it means that you've reached the pinnacle of cooeyness.


I'll be the first to say that Andrew does indeed have a (slight) need to shave. And he didn't shave because of any teasing, or peer pressure. No, he shaved out of a pure desire to be a studly man. Like his dad, his new brother-in-law, and his brother-in-law to be.


You may have gathered that from the sparkle in his eyes.




Even so ... whatever you do, son, don't care too much about what other people think. Care what God thinks about you. Be a God pleaser, not a man pleaser. The kids at the pool, they only care about making you look small so that they can look big. God cares about what's best for you.


Perhaps the hard school of knocks is the only way a kid can learn these things. But if you can at all learn a thing or two from your mom, let this be one of them.

Colossians 1:-9-14


For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.


~Brenda, the clean shaven mama on the Prairie