Going Natural : Finding God in my hair
So I want to talk about hair and God lol. I know right, how do they relate? Well, that’s the whole point of Simple Gospel; understanding that for some interesting reason, our journey of faith and our very lives in Christ can be explored within the simplest ways that God reveals himself to us. I know He reveals himself in the simplest ways because God, as omnipresent as He is, lives in the essence of His creation. He is in our morning jogs, He is in our Thursday night dinners, He is in the cool wind that blew across your windows last night. If it exists, He’s in it!
And that is why, recently, I looked back on my first year going natural and it hit me just how much of my own Christian journey I can identify in it.
When I was 11, I permed my hair for the first time. It was long, straight and pretty, and I loved it. For 13 years I kept it that way, until last year, when I thought maybe I should try something else. Some of my friends wore their hair natural, and, of course, I knew that keeping natural hair is a lot of work, but they were doing it, and it looked nice and really pretty, so I thought, why not me? I can have this, too, even if it requires that I become more dedicated to myself because natural hair will definitely demand that of you. So I took the leap.
The decision was simple; I won’t cut my hair, I’ll just braid it and stop perming.
Oh, trust me, the first few months were tough. Suddenly, I’m dealing with this hard nappy hair, and I felt discouraged but I pressed on, month after month. This whole time, the perm was falling off. Inch by inch, it was dying, and I was beginning to see a different me when I looked in the mirror. It was a new perspective and I was loving it.
Eventually, though, the perm stopped falling off. At this point, there was like two inches of it left. My natural hair kept growing, but that two-inch perm wouldn’t die. And its presence was taking away from the beauty of my natural hair. Even though, it added extra length, it wasn’t nice having those at the ends of my hair. Honestly, it didn’t belong there and I knew it. So I did the most important thing;
I cut it. Chop! chop! chop!
That moment, when I chopped those strands off, was when everything came together. Suddenly I saw the connection between this hair journey and the other journey I’ve been taking for a while now; the journey I started three years earlier.
I grew up a Christian, in the same way I would say I grew up eating rice. It wasn’t a conscious decision; just the nature of my reality. I didn’t know much of what it entailed except a vague idea of God and semi-regular trips to church on Sundays.
Then three years ago, within my circle of friends and acquaintances, I noticed a few were living a certain kind of life; they were taking charge of their Christianity in a manner that I have never been exposed to before. They were attending midweek Bible studies, they were doing something called “Quiet Time” and sharing their revelations openly, they were praying, like really praying, about everything and anything, not just the 10 second “quick one” you say over your food.
Seeing others around me carrying their Christianity in ways that was personal to them, not just connecting to their spirituality but wearing it on their sleeves, I was inspired, just as I was inspired by my friends who wore their natural hair and the effort they were putting into themselves to be better and make it work.
And just as I had done with my hair, I began to take my Christianity serious. I started attending church every Sunday, even if it meant showing up ten minutes before service ended. Making time on a Tuesday night to hear the word of God amidst other believers, slowly, stopped feeling like a chore. Reading my Bible, doing my quiet time, praying, I started enjoying these activities even as my faith grew and grew and I felt stronger in Christ.
My Christianity no longer felt like it was derivative of the religion my parents belonged to. It wasn’t the laissez-faire version anymore. I was an active Christian, participating in an ongoing relationship with God.
And like my natural hair, it was a daily constant thing, living it by the minute. And I could talk about it openly because I have come to love sharing my faith, sharing this new me in Christ, which is common with natural hair enthusiasts; talking about it.
When I had my perm, I could wake up fifteen minutes before class, and I still show up looking like (insert cool milly-rock meme here). But with natural hair, I wake up at least an hour earlier and I work it till it’s bomb.
The point being, effort is required at all times. Whereas, my permed hair allowed me certain freedoms, like oversleeping and still getting away with it, my natural hair wouldn’t. It demanded that I paid attention to it, that I wove it into my daily life, which is no different from a life in Christ.
Now, I refer to the moment I cut the last bit of perm as monumental because it symbolized to me, the decision to consciously chopped the last remnants of my old self away. We all have that one or two things, it may be habits, or activities, or even certain vulnerabilities that we indulge in, that try to stick around even after we’ve changed so much and made a lot of progress in our lives. The crazy part about these things is that, when we leave them to linger, they open the door to returning to our old selves. I know this because it was hard getting rid of them.
Even after all the spiritual milestones I was experiencing by God’s grace, even after identifying as a new creation and abiding in a life of Christ, those one or two things lingered, and they undermined what God was doing in my life.
I thought the desire for them will disappear like the others have, but when that wasn’t happening, I had to rip them from me, as painful as it was to do that. But God’s grace always abounds, and as Philippians 8:13 tells us, He will always provide the strength we need to fight our battles.
When I cut that piece of me away, I fully accepted my life as a child of God, knowing it’s a journey I can’t look back, knowing it’s a journey of daily constant effort to be a better me.
But the joy my natural hair gives me, the chance it affords me to love myself and accept who I am, removing any avenue to wear a disguise, is the same experience I’m enjoying in Christ, although a thousand times greater.
I love who I am becoming, and it’s all thanks to the Father. Amen!
