A Saturday Evening Post

My mom and I both have red hair and a fair complication. Additionally, we both have eyebrows like a teenage boy trying to grow his first mustache. if you look close enough and in just the right light, you can see there might be something that might look like an eyebrow in the place where eyebrows typically are. Both of us have never cared much for makeup, not for any religious conviction, but only because quality makeup is out of the range I care to spend to paint my face. There has been a time or two I thought I would try just a little eyeshadow or mascara, but the wild stares I get from my boys compelled me to head back to the bathroom and wash it off. My mom is of a similar mind, so I am not used to seeing her in makeup of any kind either.  

When my mother visited Ukraine, she enjoyed going to the salon to have her hair done. She formed this habit living in Taiwan and discovered the salon was very reasonable in Ukraine as well, and there was one that we had come to be on friendly terms with that was less than a block from our apartment.  

When my parents came to visit, I was often busy with homework for the kids. So my mother enjoyed exploring the town and visiting the salon or visiting shops. I wrote several messages on notecards for my dad so depending on where he was, he could show a note to the clerk to communicate that he wanted a cup of tea or whatever it was depending on where he was. Mom became quite fluent in the language of charades to get her point across. On this particular day, she communicated that she just wanted a wash and style. Business was particularly slow that day, so the girls asked if they could do some makeup on her as well. Or at least that was what she thought they said.  

“What could be the harm? She could just wash it off right?” So she agreed she laid her head back and closed her eyes, thoroughly relaxed. She trusted the girls and she trusted her interpretation of what they had said. When she woke up, she discovered there had been a slight miscommunication.

I returned that afternoon from the grocery store and my mom was holding a paper towel to her eyebrows and had all my bleaching agents spread out on the table. She was applying rubbing alcohol, bleach, and vinegar. She let the paper towel down for me to see what happened, my dear mother’s eyebrows were dyed black! Now they were visible! Standing proud like a black caterpillar over each eye and it was permanent. 

They stayed that way for about a month until the new eyebrows finally grew in and replaced the old ones.  

Instances like these happened a lot while living overseas. Most of the time, we can look back and laugh, but what happens when misinterpretations have a more significant impact?  

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11 

Sometimes we read some passages in the scripture but people lived in different times and in different circumstances. Because of our interpretation of this verse, a lot of people understand this to say that God doesn’t want any harm or heartache to come to us. Plans to prosper us and not harm us. Someone in a desperate situation might wonder how their current circumstances can be the plans he has made for them. This incorrect interpretation has caused many people have even lost their faith in God because they couldn’t see how what they were going through could be the plan of God.  

The verse before this one reveals that it is talking about Israel’s captivity in Babylon. God’s people were to be in captivity for seventy years, and then they were to be brought back to Israel, and at that point God’s plans for them was to prosper them and not to harm them. This was not talking about you or I, but rather the Isrealite nation. In fact, it wasn’t even talking about the Jewish people who heard Jeremiah say this. They would be dead when these words came true. Almost all of God’s people who went to Babylon were never liberated. they died in slavery in Babylon, and probably didn’t feel very prospered. God was faithful and His promise did come true.

We have all been in prayer constantly for the country of Ukraine and for the Ukrainian people. It is hard to see so much pain. It is harder to see that Christians have even died in the wake of Russian destruction. It is difficult to give control to God when he allows things we do not like. If you skip to the end of the book the last page, eventually we win. How these events fit into that purpose are not ours to know or understand. We can only commit our souls to a faithful Creator.