Hair Dye Day

Have you ever noticed how God sends a person into your life at exactly the time you needed him? Or her? Someone who has gone through what you’ve gone through or messed up like you’ve done? Maybe not the exact situation, but certainly a similar one. Another person who gets it.

Yesterday was hair day -- the day I set aside every few months to have my hair cut and colored -- a day which always reminds me of another time, years ago, when I was dying my hair and not doing a great job of it.

It was the day of the annual Bluebonnet Ball, and I decided at the last minute that a speedy touch-up was needed on my hair. As I’d done for 25 years or so, using the same dye and in the same way -- even the directions haven’t changed in all those years -- I quickly colored my hair. No big deal.

After I dressed in my black Jovani evening gown, carefully fixed my freshly-dyed brown hair, clasped my white pearl necklace around my neck, and got in the car, I glanced in the mirror one last time and then gasped and screamed and overall went berserk for around my forehead was an extremely dark, very noticeable stain that was none other than hazelnut hair dye! How I missed it was a mystery. But as consumed as I was for becoming as beautiful as I could be, I failed to pay attention to the obvious, and there was the stain for the world to see. Or 500 people at a charity ball in Bellville, anyway. Freaking out because Ian wouldn’t let me go back home to fix it, I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed even harder with whatever I could find while my handsome grey-haired husband -- with thick, beautiful, Samson-like hair and without a stain around his forehead -- laughed and laughed and laughed all the way to the ball.

Unable to remove most of the stain, I tried to cover it up with even more make-up and quickly improvised a new hairdo and somehow -- probably because Ian was sending up a quick SOS to God -- we had a fabulous time as I eventually began to see how funny the situation was. So instead of hiding the tell-tale dye, I showed the stain to my friends, laughingly telling them my hair dye story! Some of them thought it was funny; some didn’t. Oh, well. Ian was out of the doghouse, which is all that mattered!

I covered up my grey hair because I didn’t want it to show, which created an even bigger problem than my grey hair!

Later, I realized that sometimes I do the same thing in other areas of my life. I try to cover up pain with jokes and heartache with clichés as I want to hide what I prefer others not to see. But how can I help someone who is hurting if I pretend I’ve never been in pain? How do I help when I hide what is real?

However, when I quit trying to hide my mistakes, my heartaches, my pain -- the realities of my life -- then I help other people who need, maybe at that exact moment, to know someone else understands how tough it can be. By sharing what I think I need to hide, I'm a friend with whom they don’t have to pretend.    

We do not serve an invisible God. He is visible to us through the lives of each other. By sharing our stories, even those that are painful, we see God in the lives of each other. The God who heals. The God who doesn’t hide.  

Today I’m grateful for all the people who have shared their own stories of hospital pain. Who haven’t covered up how hard it was to watch their loved ones suffer.

As one of my favorite inspirational writers, John Ortberg, says, “He can take what you have to offer and make a difference that matters for eternity.” For all of you who have shared your heart-felt stories with us during these past weeks while Ian's mother has been in the hospital, please know that your experiences have reminded us, especially during this Christmas season, what Christ’s name, Emmanuel, really means. God with us. Regardless of how painful life can be.