My Fingernails are Growing Again

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A couple of weeks ago, I looked down at my hands and noticed my fingernails.

They were growing. That sounds like a very small thing to notice, and it is. Except that for most of the past year, my nails had barely been able to grow past the ends of my fingers. They cracked. They peeled. They were thin and unhealthy. Around the same time, my hair was falling out more than usual. I noticed those things when they were happening, of course, but I didn’t really connect them to anything. I’m a woman of a certain age. Hormones happen. Hair changes. Bodies change. I figured it was probably some combination of all the usual suspects and went on with life.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I realized I had actual fingernails again. Long enough, even, to put a little polish on them. And standing there looking at my hands, I thought: Oh. My body is coming out of it.

I am approaching a year since a painful event brought my time at a church I loved to its final conclusion. But the strain hadn’t begun there. There had already been many months of loss, pressure, uncertainty, relational upheaval, and the slow realization that things could not keep going the way they had been. Then came the final blow. Looking back now, I can see that my body had been living under an extraordinary amount of stress. I couldn’t fully recognize it while I was in it. Apparently my hair and fingernails could.

And now my fingernails are growing again. Funny how something that small can make you realize how far you’ve come.

Years ago, of all places, I heard a Mary Kay speaker say something that has stayed with me. She said that at any given time, we’re probably in one of three places: we’re going through a crisis, we’ve recently come out of one, or another one is somewhere ahead of us.

Cheery little Mary Kay thought, isn’t it? But I understood what she meant. It isn’t fatalism. Christians aren’t supposed to wander around nervously wondering what terrible thing will happen next. But neither does Scripture teach us to expect a life insulated from trouble.

Jesus didn’t. “In the world you will have tribulation,” He told His disciples. Not might. Will. And this past year has reminded me of something I think is important: faith does not make our bodies impervious to suffering.

My hair still fell out and my nails still cracked. My nervous system still knew I was under tremendous strain. I cried and grieved. I got tired – really tired at times. I sometimes woke up thinking about things I wished I weren’t thinking about. I spiraled at times. There was no spiritual force field around me because I knew my Bible and loved Jesus.

But I went through it differently. That is harder to put into words. I think it’s because the difference isn’t always visible from the outside.

This is one reason I care so deeply about the difference between doing Bible study and dwelling in the Word. It is possible to do all the Christian things. Go to church….read the Bible…even attend a Bible study. I can listen to sermons and podcasts and highlight the verses making a Bible that looks as put together and invested in as my life might look as I do the things.

But Christianity can become external if we’re not careful. We can learn how to put on the trappings of a life with God without actually learning to entrust ourselves to Him. And eventually life tests the difference. When the phone call comes and the relationship fractures and someone you trusted turns out not to be trustworthy. When the future you assumed would be yours suddenly isn’t.

And it’s not just the stress close in a church family. It’s the shock and stress of hit after hit – the cancer diagnosis, the broken marriages, death – Dad, then Mom, then friend and another friend, loss upon loss close to home and wearied by the darkness in the news…When you look around and think, How in the world did everything get this messed up?

A Bible verse used as a pleasant inspirational thought isn’t much help then. Neither is a faith built primarily on how I feel about God today.

I need something sturdier…a truth that has been allowed to sink down enough that it has reshaped the way I see reality. I need the Word of Christ dwelling in me richly, not just hovering politely around me or printed in sweet script over a peaceful landscape photo.

Dwelling in Scripture doesn’t equate necessarily to understanding what God is doing. Quite the opposite, really. Sometimes Scripture gives me language for admitting that I don’t understand what God is doing.

There is a line in Hebrews that has become precious to me: “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. But we see Him…“

But we see Him.

I cannot think of a better description of what sustained me. There were things this past year that did not look right. Things that were not right. There were moments when, if I had judged the reign of Christ by what I could see immediately in front of me, I could have wondered where in the world He was. Some around me did that. I don’t blame them. I relate. It’s hard to not slip there with clenched fists. Tears streaming down a reddened face…where in the world are You, God? This is really hard. I cried a lot alone and I cried a lot with over this past year…and the stress showed up, like I said, in my hair and nails.

“We do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.”

There is an honesty in that sentence I love. Look around. Something is wrong with this world. Sin still wounds people. Bodies still suffer. Relationships break. Good things sometimes collapse. People betray one another. Death is still an enemy. Creation still groans, oh does it groan. We do not yet see everything as it will one day be.

But we see Jesus.

Hebrews goes on to point us to the One who Himself entered our suffering, who “for a little while was made lower than the angels,” who suffered death, and who is now “crowned with glory and honor.”

Christian hope is not pretending everything is fine. It is not positive thinking. And it isn’t an escape hatch from this world. Paul says it another way in 1 Thessalonians: “we grieve…but not as those who have no hope.”

We do grieve. We grieve what is broken and what is lost. We grieve what should have been and wasn’t. Faith does not require us to minimize pain or rush past sorrow with a Bible verse and a brave face. But our grief is not hopeless grief. Our hope is Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, reigning, and returning. The One through whom God will finally put all things right. That changes the way you walk through a year when very little feels right.

It doesn’t necessarily keep your hair from falling out. Apparently, it doesn’t guarantee good fingernails either. But it gives you somewhere to stand when the world beneath your feet feels unstable.

And now, nearly a year later, I can look down at my hands and see a small sign that my body is beginning to understand what perhaps my soul has been learning all along. The difference was that I had somewhere to look when I could not make sense of what I was seeing. We do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. But we see Him. I see Him.

The next crisis will come someday…it’s already here, but that’s a post for another day…that’s life in a world that is not yet fully as it will be. I don’t need to know that I’ll handle it perfectly, I’m certain I won’t. But I know where to look.

I’ve made it a habit to not treat the Bible or my faith as a devotional or self-improvement journey. I’ve decided to dwell and that has made the difference.

We do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. But we see Him. And for now, that is enough.

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how to love God truly, heart, soul, mind, and strength and live that abundant God-honoring life we all want.
Thank you!

If this reflection resonated with you, my new Bible study, “Holy & Hopeful”, may be a meaningful next step.

It’s a 50-day study through 1 & 2 Thessalonians, written to help you do more than simply complete a Bible study. My hope is that you’ll learn to dwell in the Word, understand it in context, make meaningful connections across Scripture, and grow in the kind of faith that can hold steady when life is anything but easy.

Thessalonians speaks so clearly to the realities we’ve been talking about here: grief and hope, suffering and endurance, holiness, faithfulness, and the return of Christ. It reminds us that Christian hope is not denial, optimism, or escape. It is confidence rooted in Jesus Christ.

You can learn more about Holy & Hopeful here.

BIBLE STUDY: “Thessalonians: Holy & Hopeful” – Details/Register Here