A few years ago, I found my first gray hair. I plucked it out immediately. Its descendants have finally thus year to avenge its demise. But I don’t care. Tiny lines have started forming around my eyes; they don’t bother me. I’m not afraid of growing older. Instead, I am looking forward to aging gracefully.

Photo credit: jdurham from morguefile.com

Once I had been afraid of aging. Like many people, I believed that getting older would bring me closer to death. I started using things at an early age to alter my appearance: permanents at seven, makeup at twelve, and hair dye at fourteen. It must have worked because people kept telling me that I looked much younger than I was.

But age has a way of catching up with you. Around the time that I had children, I stopped being carded. No one told me how young I looked anymore. Motherhood had aged me overnight, I guess. The tradeoff was that no one considered me a child myself.

I found myself embracing my older self with newfound maturity. Gone was my flighty younger persona. I emerged as a woman not only older, but wiser. I had a family to care for. Old habits became unnecessary as I gazed at a new person in the mirror. I liked what I saw.

I remember the white of my grandmother’s hair and the softness of her skin, despite the wrinkles. As others invest in salon treatments to cover their grays, I am trying to think of a way to showcase mine. I am proud of this new stage in my life and I don’t want to hide it.

Gray hair is a glorious crown; it is found in the way of righteousness. Proverbs 16:31

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good. Titus 2:3