First things First.

I think my hair symbolizes it best. Generally easygoing, it is happy to comply with my every wish as long as I satisfy its few needs and play with it regularly . Except for that one tuft, right behind my ear. Stubborn and perverse, it determinedly goes against the majority. Curls? It hangs limp. Straight? It curves itself into a ringlet. Flipped in? It salutes the world like Cindy-Lou Who's eyelashes. It hates to admit the fact, sometimes hiding under layers of wind-dried locks, but it deeply needs to be different. To be unique. Not to be...ordinary. 

And so you must take this all with a grain of salt.

In my beloved Bible there are a lot of verses that warn very strongly against rebellion. I believe it is called a way to destruction, but my copy is upstairs so the reference will have to wait. Here is what I know: the Bible is solid and I am not going to start throwing out bits of it at my convenience; it tells me that God is absolutely smitten with me; and the thing I am built out of most is passion. Stubborn, feisty, ridiculous passion. Passion that is only the smallest reflection of the fervor with which God loves me. Passion that ignites in the face of oppression, lies and complacency. Passion that really doesn't quite know what to do with itself except definitely avoid politics. (Too much fuel, all at once--the explosion could be deadly.) So as I go about my life, heart aflame and tuft a-tufting, there is a world full of systems, people and habits that tell me if I don't go along with their programs, speak their lines and think their thoughts, then I am a rebellious fool and there will be hell to pay. And to my passion, these words are premium gasoline and a lit match.

They are also true. 

When I refuse to comply (slowly, at first, but gaining momentum...) with the pressures of status quo and unquestioned assumptions and instead make intentional choices that reflect a faith wrestled out in awe and trembling with my Maker, I invite the full wrath of thwarted hell upon my head. And this is how I know I am indeed a fool: because I think that is unbelievably bad-ass and I dream of the day when I am so reformed in Christ's likeness that someone actually threatens my life. I am embracing the label that appears in even my own thoughts when I balk at compliance: Hell, yes, I am rebellious. I have been freed from slavery at incredible cost and I'm not effing going back!

Yet, rebellion is not the point. Christ is the point. The Beauty of the Trinitarian God is the point. The fact that He looked like a fool and bore the wrath of thwarted hell for me has become my point. But I am delighted to additionally discover that this part of myself that I thought for so long was wrong or broken or too much, He is choosing to use. I may someday discover that it all is just an authority issue and that He was doing His awesome redemption thing, calling me Beautiful and refusing to give up on me even as I celebrated my sin. Perhaps part of this reforming in Christ's image will eventually soften my stubbornness, revert my perversity and subdue my rebellion. Or maybe instead He will continue to bless it, but give me new understanding and a different name for it. Perhaps one valued instead of censured in scripture, so I won't sound like a heretic when I get excited about how He's using me.

 But for now, when I hear the world hiss, "Rebel!", I hear God's answering whisper, "Beloved!", and I take heart that I am on the right track.