Rubber Meets Road

     Most of us have heard the expression "You can't judge a book by its cover", we often use it to teach our children not to judge others by their appearance.  The biblical version of that adage is "man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart".  (I memorized it from the KJV with "looketh", but it just seemed silly to insert the "eth" on a computer).  The problem is it is very hard to do.  I find judgmental thoughts entering my mind and often trickling out my mouth on a horrifyingly regular basis.  Where the rubber met the road for me was when that misjudged person was my son.  We didn't allow our children to get tattoos or body piercings which was easy with the oldest two, who didn't want them, but our youngest chose another path.  In his teens Tracy chose to exert his individuality by dressing like all the other skateboarders with the baggy, droopy pants, puffy untied shoes etc.  The one bonus was it was easy to tell if he was wearing clean underwear.  People who didn't know him thought he was a punk.  Those of us who did, knew him as a nice boy who chose to dress like a punk.
     But when he turned 18 and no longer needed our signed permission, Trace got both piercings and tattoos.  The holes in his ears weren't too hard to get used to, ears close up fairly easily if he should change his mind and I didn't have to look him in the ears.  I told Trace he was welcome to get tattoos as long as I got to pick the designs.  I chose bunnies and butterflies.  Actually, his first tattoos were fairly small crosses.  What kind of Christian mother would object to that?  His first big tattoo was the outline of flames on his arm.  I told him he might as well have had "Welcome to the Dollar Store" tattooed on his arm because, with a tat like that, it was the only kind of place that would hire him.  That bit of parental prophecy went far astray, he is now an auto mechanic and garages are not known for being fastidious about their dress code.  By now tattoos have become so mainstream I fully expect someday to look up from an operating table at my tattooed brain surgeon. 
     Meanwhile he had his tongue pierced, has three studs, and has not had any of the infection or dental problems I dutifully warned him about.  But for me the rubber really met the road when he had his lower lip pierced.  There was no way to look him in the face and not see THE LIP.  In glaring mothervision, I saw my baby with a black booboo under his lip.  I was torn between wanting to rip it out or kiss it and make it go away.  For a while I tried holding a book or my hand in front of the lower part of my face when I looked at him so I didn't have to see THE LIP, but then I realized that he felt I was rejecting him and not THE LIP.  It was finally time to grow up and practice what I had been preaching.  I, who knew my son so well, knew that he was so much more than THE LIP.  He was still the sweet, gentle boy that I had loved and enjoyed for 18 years, he was just that sweet, gentle boy with a hole in his lip.
     It is so much more fun to figure out what other people need to change than changing yourself, but God is more interested in our fundamental character than our fun meter.  I have learned a lot of things about God, and about myself, from my children.  May they continue to find me reachable and teachable. That pierced lip pierced me. Hello road.