I have had a love-hate relationship with my hair most of my life. Okay, to be honest, mostly hate, but I think that is not unusual for us women. If we have straight hair, we want curly, if we have curly hair we wish it were straight. Blondes want to be redheads, brunettes go blonde. There is a billion dollar hair industry for a reason, I tell you.
I was born with natural curly hair and during my adolescent and teen years it was the bane of my existence. I spent these years during the 70’s, and wanted my hair to look like Marcia Brady’s, or in some extreme fantasy, Cher’s. If you know who these super straight hair icons are, then you realize my curly haired self was dreaming. Big time. Since this was decades before the advent of the flat iron, and even the blow dryers available to us in the 1970’s were nothing close to what we have today, blowing hair straight was impossible. At a slumber party once in the 7th grade, a girl offered to iron my hair. Literally, iron it with her mother’s iron. Terrible idea. First of all, my mom’s love for shorter hair was a major deterrent and second my conviction that she was going to set my head on fire made it a certain failure.
The 80’s helped my self esteem somewhat, as big hair became the rage. Oh, I had that. It helped a lot that I was married and able to let my hair grow to the length I wanted it, which was long. I had a lot of hair, and it was thick and curly. With some mousse and air drying, I had volume for days. Finally I was relatively content with what nature had given me. I was busy raising children for two decades or so. When my first child graduated and was off to college, I needed a change. Time to put myself in someone else’s capable hands.
I visited a salon that specialized in makeovers. The girl asked me what I was looking for, and I frankly told her I was just over 40, and needed a change. She asked would I be willing to straighten my hair, and I said sure. So, off came the length and when I walked out I had shoulder length hair, straightened and smoothed into a shoulder length bob. I loved it. I rocked that new style for the next 10 years.
Somewhere around 2012, after we had moved to Florida, and I had acquired a new hairdresser, I once again re-invented myself with a short style with choppy sides. Again, I loved it. (Mostly because she told me it took ten years off my life!) Everything went smoothly until the Covid shutdowns. After about three months of being unable to get my hair cut, it was looking pretty shabby. I wondered one day, looking in the mirror, if it would curl. It was resting at the base of my collarbone by now, so I washed it, put some mousse in it and waited to see. Lo and behold, it still curled. My husband made the comment about then, “I always liked your hair curly better.” Really? Huh..
It got me to thinking. Maybe I should stop fighting against it and just go with it. But left to itself, the natural state of my hair was not all that attractive. It got fuzzy, and the humidity of Florida destroyed it. Another thing we did not have previously was the internet. So I began to research. The new millennium had brought with it a plethora of curly hair products, designed to enhance and control curls. I began my journey to find shampoos, conditioners, gels, mousses, and detanglers to make my hair my friend and not my nemesis. After about a year, I have a routine that I am comfortable with. We have good days and bad.
Having natural curly hair is not unlike having an adolescent girl living on your head. Picture this conversation with your hair in front of the mirror: “Okay, hair. What are you going to do today?” “I don’t know. What are YOU doing today?” “I’m meeting an old friend for lunch. So I need you to look good, please.” “Oh..no. I just want to lay here, all flat and yucky. I don’t feel like doing anything.” “Please? Come on. Cooperate.” “Can’t you wear a hat?” “NO. No hat.” “Wear that claw thingy.” Grrr.
Or it’s this: “Okay, hair. Whatever. We’re staying home today and doing housework and writing.” “Really? Cause I’m having my Best Day Ever! Just look at me. At least take a selfie!” Great. Now I have to put on makeup.
I sort of see my hair dilemma as a comparison to our sin nature. It is our natural inclination. Have you ever heard someone say, “It’s just the way I am. God made me that way.” But it is sin. It is wrong. It is not Godly, holy behavior. And we know it. So we can let it have its way, let it have its rule in its natural state, or we can use the ‘products’ that God has made available to us to control it. His Word and His Spirit. God made these accessible to us to control the natural inclination of the flesh. It will never really go away, as Paul told us, when he said “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” So even Paul, the great apostle battled with the natural man within himself. So then what did he do?
He goes on through Romans 7-8 to explain that while his flesh wars with his spirit to follow after God and do good, there is a struggle. He expounds upon it in chapter 8…we are to be Spiritually minded. To be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace. “Be ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit” vs 9. And the one we claim and cling to when that flesh raises its ugly head? “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Vs 37.
These verses don’t do much to tame my misbehaving curly hair, but with consistent practice, and much prayer, one day there could be progress in curbing that sin nature. He promises.
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