When You Are Rooted in Christ, You Don’t Need Constant Validation

I got my hair cut today and, although I never do anything but a basic trim, I fully expected the normal “that looks nice!” compliment from my husband when I walked in the door.

And he said nothing.

Not because he was being insensitive or unkind – he was simply distracted with work while moving through the normal rhythm of the day. And in all fairness to Tim, I just do a basic trim so the only difference is that the stylist curled my hair a little differently than I usually do.

But in those quiet moments, it is amazing how quickly the mind can begin filling in the blanks:

Maybe he doesn’t like it.
Maybe it actually looks terrible.
Maybe he noticed but just doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.

Thankfully, I captured those thoughts and recognized them right away. I didn’t give them any oxygen. But it got me thinking about how this kind of thing would have tormented me in our early years of marriage. I would have been looking for my husband’s validation of my haircut instead of just looking in the mirror and deciding if I liked it or not.

I once heard someone say, “Do you walk into a room announcing, ‘Here I am’? Or do you walk into a room noticing, ‘Oh, there you are’?”

That question exposes something important.

Because when our identity is not rooted in Christ – and who HE says we are – we will use relationships to try to get validation..