We have two Morkie puppies – a mix of Maltese and Yorkshire Terrier.
Their names are Lilly and Lizzy. (Ask me about their names sometime – crazy stories!)
You would think that being the same breed, having such similar names that they would be very much alike. They’re not.
Lilly is black with a thick beautiful coat. She has perfect markings of white and tan on her feet and face.
Lizzy is a little “redhead” with strawberry blond hair tinged with silver on the ends. Her hair is thin and wild and resembles the “Benji” look.
Or at least that’s what I thought.
I would desperately try to “fluff” Lizzy’s hair to make it look fuller – more like Lilly’s. Little did I know I was defeating my own purpose.
I took them both in for a grooming this week. Lilly is a pro, but it was Lizzy’s first time. The groomer took Lizzy and began looking at her coat. “Have you ever bathed her?” she asked. I was offended. Of course I’ve bathed her. At least once a week. When I said yes, she told me that she had asked because her hair closest to her body was matted. I was embarrassed. I told her that I brushed her and bathed her faithfully.
Apparently, I’d been using the wrong kind of brush and every time I bathed her I was “cementing” in those matted tangles that I didn’t even know were there. All I could see was her crazy, thin hair that for the life of me I could not fluff up.
The groomer informed me that she would probably have to shave her if they couldn’t remove the mats. Reluctantly, I gave my ok, hoping that maybe a good shave would help her hair to thicken.
Hours later, when I went back to pick the puppies up, I tried to prepare myself for what I might see when they brought them to me. Lilly all groomed and lovely. Lizzy nearly bald and looking like a sad little rat.
When they opened the door and let them out, I’m sure my mouth dropped open. Lilly looked beautiful. But so did Lizzy! They had been able to remove her tangles without shaving at all and her hair was beautifully shiny and BRUSHED DOWN instead of fluffed up. THIS is how Lizzy was supposed to look.
Lilly more resembles the Maltese part of her heritage. I had wrongly assumed that Lizzy would be the same. But no. Lizzy leans more to the Yorkshire Terrier side. I was trying to make her hair go a way that it was never intended to go. And the result was a mess.
I have to learn to brush her differently with a different brush. To pet her differently than I pet Lilly. And to let her new-found beautiful hair do what it was meant to do – part down the middle of her back and flow down to her sides.
Lizzy is not Lilly. But now she is just as beautiful in her very own unique way because I am letting her be fully Lizzy. Me trying to manipulate her hair to the way I wanted it to go resulted in a mess. Tangles. Mats. Frustration.
I can apply this same principle to people. God created each of us uniquely. Our own personalities and quirks. Our own strengths and weaknesses. We need to celebrate the people in our lives for who they were created to be, not put them in a box of our misguided interpretation of who they SHOULD be. If there are changes that need to made, grooming that needs to be done, we need to leave that up to the Professional, God, their Creator who knows them better than we ever could. But sometimes the Groomer needs to train US to see them differently. To not try and change who they were created to be, but to work WITH and enjoy the beauty that is theirs alone.
When we stop fighting the “wild hairs” and begin brushing in the right direction, we start to see a loveliness that we never knew was there. We stop wishing for what isn’t and begin to enjoy what IS.
Suddenly, we realize that when we stop trying to change others, we ourselves change and grow in our vision and perspective. And maybe what we see in the mirror becomes a little more beautiful in the process, too… 🙂
Romans 12:4-5 – For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Luke 6:42 – How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye?
