Ear Piercing

Our oldest granddaughter will be eight years old in about two weeks.
Time seems to be flying by.
I experienced the warp speed of time with my own children.
Now, I am experiencing it with my grandchildren as well.

This particular young lady loves to be outside.
She is a voracious reader; books are something we always talk about when we’re together.
She loves to go outside and swing on the swing set.
That is where she does her best imagining.

She is an incredibly fast runner.
She is learning to play the piano.
This birthday, there is only one thing she really wants.
She wants to get her ears pierced.

She has been talking about it for months.
Quite a few little girls in her class have gotten their ears pierced.
Even if she was the only one, she would still want to get them pierced.
She moves my hair out of the way so she can see the earrings I wear each day.

This weekend, my daughter is taking her oldest daughter to get her ears pierced.
They will go out to lunch and make a special memory together.
I can totally relate.
That is all I ever wanted when I was a girl as well.

My mother put a boundary in place.
You can get your ears pierced when you are sixteen years old.
I don’t really know why she set sixteen as the boundary, but there was no moving her.
I watched girl after girl in my class get their ears pierced, but nothing changed her mind.

However, my mother died when I was fifteen years old.
My ears were not pierced.
It was something I would not get to do with her.
In fact, the desire to get my ears pierced seemed unimportant during those hard years.

One of my mother’s friends had gone to Spain on vacation.
She bought me lovely pearl, stud earrings even though my ears were not pierced.
I think she thought it might be an incentive for my mother to agree to their piercing.
It still did not change her mind, so the earrings sat in my drawer.

When I was going through my mother’s things, I added my pearl earrings to the items.
Many things were donated, but some things were put on consignment or sold.
The pearl earrings from Spain were sold.
How I wish I still had them.

I came to Christ and began going to a non-denominational church.
I attended Bible studies and eventually began teaching the Bible many years later.
In those early years at Bible study, there was a speaker who was also a writer.
I bought one of her books and talked to her after she spoke to all of us women.

Those years were hard because I had left the church I had gone to my whole life.
Leaving that church caused much division in the extended family.
I talked to her about that; she listened and then challenged me.
If you can raise your five children in God’s Word at your current church, then stay.

However, if they do not learn about Jesus and His Word, then you should leave.
She said many things I had been thinking and praying about.
I knew what I had to do, but I knew it would cause division; which it did.
The cost was counted; following Jesus and studying His Word was vitally important.

I left Bible study that day and decided to get my ears pierced.
I was in my mid thirties, far away from the sixteen year old boundary my mother had set.
I knew that I had to leave my former church and despite the division, God would help me.
He would never leave me or forsake me.

I have read through the entire Bible each year since first coming to faith in 1992.
The Word of God is my lifeline, my plumb line, a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Soon after getting my years pierced, I read a verse I had read before, but now with new meaning.
It put everything in perspective.

But if the servant plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his servant forever. (Exodus 21:5,6)

In the Old Testament, a slave could choose to stay and serve his master.
If he made that choice, his master would pierce his ear against a door or doorpost.
That piercing showed everyone that the slave would be a willing servant forever.
I cannot say that this was my motivation for getting my ears pierced that day, but…

When I read that verse, after my ears were pierced, I was delighted.
What I thought was much too late was actually God’s perfect timing.
Piercing my ears was not just fulfilling a girlhood dream.
It was now a reminder that I am His and He is mine.

God is never late.