The first thing I noticed about wearing a head covering was that I prayed more. Not in more depth, but more frequently. I would feel it move a bit on my head, or see a reflection in the mirror, and I would be reminded that I was to pray continually. So I would offer up a prayer to God, and keep praying until I got distracted (which is disturbingly quickly). I made a real effort to make these prayers selfless prayers – most of them have been for orphans and nations that have a large orphan population in them. And while I might not ‘feel’ like my prayer life is that much greater, I am seeing results, simply from this slightly more frequent prayer!
The second thing I noticed was along similar lines. I am now much more conscious of the kind of witness I am to the world around me. And while I’ve already been mistaken for someone of another religious faith, the fact of the matter is that I am now pretty much instantly recognisable as “religious”, even if not necessarily instantly identifiable as Christian. It has changed my behaviour a little – I make more effort to be polite and let other people go first (etc) in queues. I’m not perfect though – I took the head covering off for 10 minutes while I went into a bottle store to get some champagne!
The next thing that I noticed was just how vain I am. I’m really, really, REALLY vain. I have been so tempted to take my head covering off because I don’t look as pretty with it on. And just writing that fact horrifies me! To do something disobedient to the Lord because then my appearance will be nicer? Even if it is an extremely minor thing (which head coverings is – our salvation certainly does not rest on something like that) this is still horrifying! As someone who always thought of themselves as being someone who took all aspects of Scripture seriously once I understood them, this was a real eye-opener for me. Am I really that shallow? Basically, yes, I am.
Which leads to the next point. I always thought of myself as the kind of person who took Scripture seriously. Someone who was a Berean, who searched the Scriptures myself and formed my own opinion as to what the contents said. After all, I’m a Calvinist who goes to church with a bunch of Arminians. I’m a quiverful Christian. I believe that adoption is awesome. And I believe all these things in spite of facing lots of opposition from those around me about these views.
But wearing a head covering showed me that this is NOT the case. I kept on thinking… wow… this family doesn’t have their family wear head coverings, and they are a really godly family. Much more than me. And so-and-so doesn’t. Nor does such and such. Maybe I’m wrong. They can’t be wrong. They’ve had more experience in this than me. Maybe I should just go along with what they are doing… after all, they are godly women.
The thing is, I can’t imagine any of these women telling me that I should copy them over what I believe God has said in His Word. They might (indeed, they evidentially do, or else their heads would be covered) disagree about my interpretation, but they would all encourage me to follow God’s Word as my standard, not their lives.
Wearing a head covering has really uncovered a lot of self-centredness and pride in my life, even though I’ve only been wearing one for a little over 2 weeks at the time of writing this. (Posting will come out at a later date, if you’re a friend who is tallying up dates.) It needed to be uncovered, and I need to work on these issues – and no doubt more, which will appear as time goes on. But I am so very thankful to the Lord for revealing these serious character flaws in myself, using such a little thing as a small bit of material.
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