I never imagined that my hair would be such a good tool for fundraising, and I definitely never expected that it would teach me so many lessons. But 550 dollars and countless hours of tangling and detangling later, I have grown a special relationship with my hair that I never saw coming.
It took three days to put my dreadlocks in. It took two weeks to take them out.
These two weeks of torturous dread removal can be attributed to one massive knot that formed on the back of my head as a result of three or four dreadlocks that decided to merge into one unbreakable super-knot.
For some completely unknown reason, I decided to affectionately name this knotted combobulation “Bob Saget.” Again, don’t ask me why.
But as I set to work trying to kill Bob Saget with my tiny sword (this is what one of my friends decided to name the needle that I used to separate the knots), I quickly became frustrated. I realized that what I thought would probably take a day to untangle would probably take all week. And that it did.
Last night, Bob Saget finally died and I brushed my hairbrush through all of my hair for the first time in three months. And although this knot caused me great stress and anxiety until it was vanquished, here are a couple of lessons that it taught me along the way:
1. Be patient. Patience is something I’ve always struggled with. It has a lot to do with my constant desire to be in control over everything in my life all the time. Taking out my dreadlocks required so much patience that the knot on the back of my head began to feel like a parasite that leeched out all of my energy until it was gone. But ultimately, the cure for patience (and most things in life) is trust. I had to trust that I would be able to get the knot out eventually and that I was not going to lose all of my hair. And sure enough, my hair is still intact and the tangles are gone. It just took time.
2. Don’t ignore your mess. When I began taking my dreads out, it went pretty smoothly at first. I took most of them out in one night, and I thought things were going pretty well. But then I had oral surgery to have my wisdom teeth removed, and I went a couple days ignoring the matted section on the back of my head. The more I ignored it, the more knotted and tangled it became until it formed the mass that became Bob Saget. If I had only worked on this section earlier, it would have been so much easier to take out. This is exactly how I’ve seen sin work in my life. Sin enters our lives and starts making a tangled, webbed mess. And the more we ignore it, the more tangled it gets. Then when we finally try to attack this sin, it’s become so knotted that it seems impossible to tackle. But of course, Jesus didn’t die for my hair, but he did die for my sin. And when we trust in him, there is no mess too big to overcome.
3. Change is okay. When I was dared to get dreadlocks for $200, I didn’t hesitate. I have to admit, I was pretty excited about them. But when my parents offered to donate $350 if I took them out, I resisted. I didn’t want to lose all of the hard work that went into my dreads and I hadn’t had them for long yet. But most of all, I had grown a strange relationship with my dreadlocks and I didn’t want them to go. But after staring at my fundraising bar and how much I still had to go, I couldn’t refuse the donation. But ultimately, my hair is just hair. And what’s more important is what lies ahead–this awesome opportunity to take the Gospel to the nations and serve God’s people.
I miss my dreadlocks already, but once again, I’m thankful for what they’ve taught me. Who knows what crazy hair transformation will be next? ;P
