God’s trying to teach me a lesson, and after 2 years without me getting it, I’m ready to jump ship.
For the last 3 months I’ve had dreadlocks, unbeknowst to many of my loved ones and even some of my squadmates. Why? Because I always had a strange desire to have them, and for a while I loved my wonky – fuzzy – cylindrical dreadlocks. I loved watching them change as they knotted up and formed loops. But then the crazy 3 month stage began and suddenly, I was panicking. My hair went from being a source of pride & joy, to embarrassment and shame. So I hid my hair, under hats, headbands, in pigtails and buns. I did whatever it took to hide my hair from those around me.
Some of my teammates have been incredibly supportive, loving my crazy dreads and encouraging me to keep going even when I didn’t want to. They understood what was going on, and why I was struggling so much. However, plenty of people have commented on my hair, essentially telling me to ditch the dreads and return to normal hair. Because they weren’t aware of what I was going through, their words, while never meant to hurt, only made the struggle that much harder.
This Sunday, immediately after promising myself that I wouldn’t do anything to the dreads (at least until January) I combed 4 of them out. Guilt followed quickly, along with the unshakable feeling that I had failed God. Here I was, in the middle of a 2-year long journey to understand how God sees me; and I’m bailing out of the lesson I KNEW he was trying to teach me.
Since then, it’s been an ongoing struggle. My poor team has had to listen to me for the past week, going back and forth about what I was going to do.
“I’m combing them all out”
“Just kidding, I’ll leave them and reevaluate in January”
“Friday, I’m getting rid of ALL the dreads.”
Well, here we are with my last ditch attempt to learn this lesson: Hair is not required for beauty. Hair does not “make” a woman. I am more than my hair.
Wednesday night, as I laid in bed wide awake thinking about my hair and what on earth I was going to do with it, I decided to pray about it again. And I found myself reminded of a challenge I had thought of months earlier, but had decided to postpone. I felt the need to give God one more chance to teach me this lesson, and this was the perfect opportunity. So what is this challenge?
If I’m fully funded by 11:59pm on November 30th, I will shave my head.
Not only does this help support my missions trip and allow me to continue to share the love of God around the world, but it also forces me to continue the lesson God’s been trying to teach me for the last 2 years.
$4,986 – that’s how much money God needs to provide in just 34 days. But here’s my theory, if me finishing this lesson is that important to God, he’ll bring in the money.
Go ahead, partner with God and help support not only my ministry around the world, but support the lesson God’s been trying to teach me for years.
Or if you just really want to see me shave my head, donate below. If we reach the goal, I’ll shave my head and have my team film it for you.
There are 2 ways to donate
1. Click the “Donate” button at the top and fill in your information
2. Click HERE to donate through paypal – and help me pay off my $200 medical bill
*Paypal donations are not tax-deductible, but will still count for the purposes of this challenge. i.e “Fully Funded”
Before I realized how much of my identity was tied up in my hair (10/2014)
AKA the hair that I now wish I had
When the journey first began, and I felt led to chop off 17inches of hair, and still didn’t learn my lesson. (12/2014)
The rapidly shrinking, fuzzy, uneven mass of hair that made me stop and wonder “Dear God, what is happening with my hair?!” (10/2016)
