DIVINE (Hair) REPAIR

Once upon a time, I found myself getting ready to comb my hair. 

When I say comb, I mean “detangle,” and when I say “hair,” I want you to understand that for at least 10 years now, its (alleged) “style” has reflected the loss of knots (dozens) which I am (truly) FORCED to cut out of these tresses at least three times a year.  

(I’m North African* with shoulder** and back injuries, if that tells you anything.)

Anywhoodle, I’m trying out this brand*** which shall remain nameless

 that recently (attempted to) re-brand from “drugstore luxury” to “cheaper than Suave, more priceless than OlaPlex.” (Basically.) 

I had been led to believe that it can and will detangle my hair in under three**** hours, a lofty claim, even for something (purporting to be) “high-end” (whatever that means). 

Long story short, I slather it on and fetch my trusty detangling brush. 

In under a minute I can comb through with no knots.  

“Is this for real??”

Yes… and no. 

Yes, because it did in fact, get lots of surface level knots out. 

But also NO, coz the deeper knots were very loyal, aka still very much there. 

My initial thought was that the deeper knots had been hanging out wit me for a much longer time, and had therefore had more, erm, time and more secrecy or silence or darkness or whatever they’d required to get the way they were (at that very moment).

And sometimes it do be like that. 

This time, however, was different. I felt God Plopping a thought into my head, and it went something like this:

“Is any conditioner actually even touching those knots?”

 I felt and I felt, and at first I was like “yeah of course!” on account of the fact that 

I felt moisture and the characteristic weird sliminess of “most modern conditioners,” and presumed that they, my unintentional dreadlocks, had been covered. 

But they weren’t. 

When I felt God nudge me to move the top layer out of the way, I found out that they had just gotten a watered-down version of it, and not enough to penetrate into the knots at all. 

I applied a wee, tiny bit of fresh hair conditioner (ok, ok, it was stolen from my bangs) to the second and third layers of hair, and after just a few pass-throughs, the knots there had become disloyal, a.k.a. they had gone the way of the Zip disk. (aka it worked and my hair was “significantly less-matted and beastly.”)

Sometimes we try something and think it hasn’t worked for us (or someone else).

But the question isn’t “did it work” but rather “did I give it a chance to work?” 

Also, “Did I even give it access to the place where it needed to go in order TO work?”

(And, if we’re being really honest with ourselves, “might there be the merest hint of any user error going on here?”

Sometimes we think that Christianity, following Jesus, getting to receive God’s supernatural and Divine peace, love, and joy (Et Al) are all just a myth…

… but sometimes, just sometimes, it’s because we haven’t allowed Him to penetrate, much less even touch the bits in our lives that most need His Divine Repair.