I have always been the girl with the hair. When my mom was pregnant with me she had a ton of heart burn, supposedly a sign that your baby will have a lot of hair. Sure enough, July 13 1988 rolled around and I popped out with a head of thick black curls. My parents would take me for walks and strangers would declare, “How dare you put a wig on that beautiful baby!”
When I was little my mom made me keep it short, because I would not let anyone with a brush in hand near my head. Short hair and curls are never good on a little kid. The result is a mushroom cloud afro and gender misdiagnosis. So as I got older, I rebelled haircuts and forced the occasional hair brushing. I let it grow long. And I was never mistaken for a boy again.
By the time I hit high school one of my favorite things to do was to get a haircut. Oh, I would not cut more than necessary. But what I loved was how my hairdresser would parade me around the salon, “Wow, your hair is gorgeous. It is so thick. And your curls have maintained their shape so well.” Everyone would leave their stations to come get a hand full of my hair. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. My hair was beautiful. Women would tell me, men would tell me. And I would spend hours straightening it and spend hundreds maintaining it.
And then I decided to go on The World Race. And the question hit; what would I do with my hair?
It took four months of disobedience for me to finally succumb and say to the Lord, “OK OK! I will not bring my Chi (only the best hair straightener in the universe) on The World Race! I hear you.” Jesus tells us to not bring an extra shirt or any extra money when we say yes to follow him, and I was fighting with the Creator of the earth about bringing my flat iron. Lame.
And then there was the commonly thrown out there idea of dreads. People would tell me all the time how good I would look with dreads. And in all honestly I can get dreads in just a week of not brushing it out. But then the fear hit of how to get rid of them? That means shaving my head. No deal. I will not go back to looking like a boy.
So finally, there was the logical thought of just cutting it shorter. My father suggested this. “You’ll be gone 11 months. It will all grow back by the time you get home.” Yeah, logical. My response you ask? “No dad, this is my husband catchin' hair.”
Yeah, seriously. I had this idea in my head that when I do meet my husband, it will be my hair that wins him. Like my hair was woven out of gold and with one hair flip Gerard Butler would waltz over and say “Hey, baby. Can I get yo’ numba. The back of yo head is ridiculous.” De-lu-sion-al .
But that is how beauty is today in the world. I thought my hair made me beautiful. I thought my hair made me ME. And yeah, there may have been other things that I didn’t like about my body. But, dang, I had rockin’ hair. And without it, who would find me attractive or want to marry me? I would joke around about how annoying and high maintenance it was, but ask me to cut it off and I would tell you you could take my leg instead.
Writing this now, I am realizing how jacked up that is and how much Jesus needed to teach me. About beauty and about vanity. I had a lot to learn, a lot to surrender, a lot of hair to surrender. The Lord always gets His way, sometimes by force. Here is the story of how I surrendered every hair on my head to the God that has them all numbered.
Month one: Dominican Republic
Hair is large and in charge in this humidity. I am going through my expensive American styling products a little fast trying to keep up with all this hair. Missing my Chi but for now embracing the wild Amazonian look as I climb waterfalls and hike through slums.
I hold a little girl in the slums that gets made fun of a lot by the other kids. This little girl has a bad attitude and gets mistaken for a boy a lot. I love her and just want to hold her close to my heart and sing sweet songs to her. One day, while holding her a little boy tells me I should not play with this little girl, that she is a trouble maker and has lice. I smile at him with the same attitude and defiance as the little girl and say, “Ni importa, este es mi corazonita. Y Jesus le ama mucho. Piojos o no piojos”, “I don’t care, this is my little sweetheart and Jesus loves her. Lice or no lice.”
Month two: Haiti
I got really sick with Dengue fever this month and was bedridden for two weeks with high fevers. I did not feel beautiful and I think I washed my hair maybe three times all month. But Jesus was teaching me a lot about accepting people’s love. He told Peter in the bible that if Peter did not let the Lord wash his feet then he could have no part with Him. Jesus washed my feet this month. People cooked for me, brought me my meds and even gave me bedside foot and hand massages.
During a time of prophesy one of my team mates Monica had an interesting vision. The theme, my hair.
She saw chunks of my hair hitting the ground but as they hit the ground they turned into doves and flew off. We all giggled and joked about whether or not I would get to a point where I would chop it all off or what it could mean. I laughed uncomfortably. I had no clue what the road ahead would hold.
Month three: Thailand
We have a code red. There is an infestation. I HAVE LICE!
Flashback to that little girl back in the DR. It took me and two friends (Liz and Ashlee, they are CHAMPS) five hours to treat and comb through with that tiny baby comb. Then I did it again two days later. And the next week, and the next week. Man, I had A LOT of lice. Big, black lice. Not the white dainty kind that live in America. I felt so dirty and ashamed.
All of the little Thai girls loved to take our hair down and braid and pull it up at odd angles. But I had to keep all of mine locked up in a tight knot on the top of my head. Sad day.
Month four: Malaysia
I am fed up. This hair is drama. I still have lice but too much hair to even treat it. I am feeling drastic. And in a bold moment I pulled a sister aside handed her a pair of scissors and said, “Ok, I have 10 minutes until my next meeting. I am tired of this lice drama and feeling dirty. Let’s do this.” Ten minutes and six inches later… I looked like a lamp shade. Crap. All the bold empowerment I felt before this left me. I had to get it fixed in Bangkok. There went another two inches. But my resident lice got to make other lice friends when I ran into a few other World Racers from D squad that had just arrived from Romania and were infested too. What a better way to make friends than to pick lice out of each other’s hair!
Month five: Cambodia
If my hair could speak at this point it would say; “I am short. I am ugly. I am falling out.” It is hard to get enough Calcium here and my hair is literally abandoning ship. With every wash, brush or hairflip, it slips away like dandelion seeds in the breeze. And I seem like I am keeping it all together but I am FREAKING OUT! There are a few other gals on the squad that are struggling with loosing hair too so I go to them and say, “Ladies, we need to pray. The Bible says that our hair is our glory. So let’s proclaim that over every strand.” Before I know it they are praying and I am breaking down. I was supposed to be leading this confidance rally. But I just keep thinking about what I would look like if it didn't stop falling out. You would think that I was dying. A part of me was. My vanity.
Month six: Tanzania
Top of the mountain. Midway through the Race. And half my hair is gone. Left in tiny piles and in shower drains all across Cambodia. There are times when I miss it. It freaks me out how little shampoo I have to use and the fact that when I put my head on the pillow at night I can actually feel the pillow with my scalp and not just feel the pillow of my hair. But I am in Africa and am grateful to have a lot less hair to deal with. And the Lord is teaching me that my beauty comes not from what I put on my body or even the stuff that grows out of it. My beauty is much deeper. As a woman I am crowned with beauty. I am created to show the beauty of Christ. It is not something that I have to do or measure up to. It is who I am. And no scissors, infesting bugs, or nutritional deficiency can ever take that away from me. It is in my “gentle and quiet spirit”, the beauty of my heart and what makes me cry, and in how I see the good in others and love them. But it is also in how He made me too, on the outside. I am BEAUTIFUL!
Jesus was so sweet to hold me while I cried over lost hair. And all the while, as every hair hit the ground, He would whisper to me how pretty I am and how much He loves me. And after a while I stopped caring about this thing that was supposed to be my “glory”, and started listening to and believeing what my Jesus said, and what my Daddy said.
During another prophesy time this month one of my Race sisters had another vision about my hair:
“I saw these ringlets of curls popping out of your head like Shirley Temple and as they grew longer and longer Jesus said, “I am her glory.”
I laughed for about five minutes after that. My friend did not understand what it meant, but I did. He is my glory. Not the hair on my head. His love over me is my glory. It is funny how He works. How He will use all things for our good because He loves us and how He can see all of the impurities in my heart and the things I clutch too tightly. How He gently guides us back into balance, to a place where we will be healthier and happier. Free. My hair will grow back. Jesus has promised me that. And I am sure that my future husband will love my hair. But that will not be the thing that draws him to me or what makes me beautiful in his eyes.
So I say thank you Jesus. Thank you that your love for me is more than follicle deep and greater than the number of hairs on my head. Thank you for calling me beautiful. For making me beautiful. And thank you for not making me shave my head to learn this lesson. You are my glory.
