I still remember being a little girl and having to get my hair brushed.  OH THE HORROR!  I am NOT a vain person, but when I was a little girl, I had the most beautiful head of thick, platinum blonde hair ever! Though I loved to dress up, I never liked fixing my hair.  I always thought French braids were beautiful but the torture of getting it braided kept me from wanting to do it very often AT ALL! It hurt all the way down to my toes, y’all!  My mom would use my “pink brush” because it was the most gentle brush we could find and yet it STILL hurt! I still remember one of my biggest haircuts was all because the knot in my hair was so bad that my mom threw up her hands in frustration and said, “You’re just going to have to get it cut!” So I did!

By the time Grace came into my life, my head was no longer as tender as it had been when I was a child. Grace was also pretty good at doing her own hair- one of the possible benefits of having a single dad for a while.  One of our favorite things to do together was to play “beauty shop”! After I washed my hair, she loved to dry and style it and I loved to do her hair too! Our “beauty shop” time was a bonding experience for us. We would talk about anything and everything while relaxing in the warmth of the hair dryer and gentle sensation of someone playing with your hair. We still do this when she is home from school. It makes me smile just thinking about it.  So of course, I couldn’t wait for my other girls to get big enough for us to play “beauty shop” together. 

Cue the screeching record…

Let’s just say, I hope that “hair time” (notice I didn’t say “beauty shop”) doesn’t leave irreparable damage! Unfortunately they are like me when I was a kid, thick hair, lots of tangles, tender headed, and they HATE having it brushed!

Though Carly’s hair seems to tangle more than Bella Kate’s, it is Bella Kate that hates brushing her hair the most. Bella Kate seems to take it as a personal attack. She glares at me as if I am trying to torture her on purpose! Sometimes she screams or cries. She has even been known to hit the sink in frustration! Y’all, one day, she kicked at me while I was doing her hair. (Let’s just say, that was the only time she did that!) Believe it or not, we have the most gentle (wet) hair brush we could find. I would have LOVED to have traded out that old pink brush for this one, but it doesn’t matter.  She has thick hair like her momma and her head is tender, also like her momma, so it just hurts. Tangles hurt!  Tangles are messy!  But you have to brush the tangles out to have smooth hair! It’s just something you have to do. 

Recently I was reading a book and the author referred to something as a “sin tangle”! I immediately thought of hair tangles and it especially reminded me of trying to brush out Bella Kate’s. Just like getting the tangles brushed out of our hair, brushing the sin tangles out of our lives hurts too. Whether that sin tangle be a friend who brings more pain and angst than joy and love or a habit of telling little white lies to stay out of trouble that slowly turn into a mountain of lies and a life where no one trusts you- sin tangles are messy!  Sin tangles hurt! And if they aren’t brushed out often enough, those very sin tangles can take root in our hearts and grow into dreadlock style addictions that take on a life of their own. 

I wonder if when God is brushing out our sin tangles we get mad at Him too?  Do we sometimes glare at Him and ask Him why He let it happen? Do we hit the counter in frustration and get angry? Do we cry or scream because it hurts? Do we try to hurt Him or others because we are hurting? This is the part where I can imagine God being like me!  I can imagine that some days He gets frustrated with me! I can imagine God looking at me and saying, “Amy, I’m doing the best I can, but I didn’t CAUSE these tangles. I’m just trying to help you get them out!” Maybe I glare back at him and accuse Him of being rough on purpose. Maybe I even scream out in frustration. 

Or maybe He is like me on the days that Bella Kate brushes her own hair first. When she decides to brush out her own hair before I get the brush, she is generally more compliant and will make it through most of the time without complaining. Sure there might be a slight jump or little cringe but for the most part, it just goes better! It’s ESPECIALLY on those days that I do everything in my power to make it as painless as possible. I really don’t like to hurt her. It’s just something that has to be done. I wonder if sometimes, when we take the initiative to get the sin tangles out of our lives first, that God does everything in His power to make the process as gentle and painless as possible. I wonder if He sees us doing our best to get out of sin’s strong hold and gently takes the brush from our hands and gets the rest out for us.  Sure, there might still be some cringes and maybe a few stabs of pain but overall, the process goes smoother.

Sometimes, those tangles get so big that we simply have to get it cut!  The good thing about a good haircut is that it removes all the dead and split ends and allows for healthy growth.  Maybe sometimes our sin tangles are passed the point of getting brushed out and simply need to be cut from our lives altogether! I think that in those cases, our necks (or hearts) sometimes feel bare and we are suddenly very aware of the unfamiliar sensations that were blocked by those tangles for so long. Sometimes those sensations may feel like anxiety of the unknown sprinkled with longing for the familiar.  Or it may be straight terror of simply feeling our emotions of which our society seems to have created a phobia. Whatever that sensation may be, change is sometimes hard. Change is sometimes messy.  But change is always necessary for healthy growth.  Maybe God needs to cut out parts of our lives to get rid of the dead and split ends we have collected so that He can make room for new and healthy growth. 

I still hold out hope that one day, Bella Kate and Carly will enjoy playing “beauty shop” with me. At the very least, I hope that they will get to the point of not seeing it as me trying to torture them. I’m also holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, I too will get to the point where I no longer view the “detangling” process of my life as a form of torture but rather as precious bonding time with my God.