Dread Head (my dread journey)

In October, 2011, I stumbled across videos on YouTube of people talking about their dreadlocks. At first, I was enthralled! I couldn't get enough. The more videos I watched, the more I saw that people other than potheads had dreadlocks. I soon came to find a lady who approached the dreadlocks as a spiritual transformation. Her name is Tara Wagner of theorganicsister.com . (She has, since then, shaven off her dreadlocks for the same reason.) Eventually, I found that there were a reasonable amount of Believers putting dreadlocks in their hair. The more videos I watched, the more I thought about what I'd look like if I had dreadlocks.

Let me stop there for a moment. Let me take the time to say that before this, I'd been asking God to give me His eyes to see people the way that He saw them. I'd been dealing with judgement and being judgmental most of my life, because my mom is very judgmental. I found myself being very haughty and cruel, for no good reason, other than someone looking at me the wrong way.

Okay... back from the break. I watched most of Tara Wagner's videos on YouTube about her dreadlocks and other channels of people who experienced judgement as they pursued dreadlocks. Meanwhile, in my quiet times and Bible readings, I felt God saying that this would be good for me; a journey for me to take to understand the glances, the feelings, the wrongness of being a hypocrite Christian. I understood the ugliness of saying that I love all people, but in my heart of hearts, I despised the person who sagged their pants below their knees or the person who acts like a thug, but doesn't have common knowledge to know right from wrong. Or even the person holding the "HOMELESS" sign at the traffic light... Keep your window up and they won't ask for money to feed their drinking or drug habit. Keep your eyes forward and they won't know that you are thinking how dishonest they are. Or you think they don't know you're thinking that...

Well, November came and I ached to change my hair. "But I don't think Rachel would like it if I had dreadlocks in her wedding..." So, I waited. one more month passed and on December 3rd, I got the supplies and dreaded half of my head. My pastor, Nathan Martin kept me accountable without even knowing it. I had mentioned on Twitter that I was started the process and the next day, he asked about them. I pulled my hair out of my ponytail and showed him the progress that I had made from the previous night. And that night, I finished the process. My arms were tired, and I was exhausted!

Immediately, I felt eyes on me. The first time I went to church with them in my hair, people's upper lips curled as they asked what I had done. I could see that people didn't approve. I think back to the first video I made to introduce my dreadlocks... 2 or 3 days old, and they looked pretty bad. LOL That's not the point. The point is that I got them in. That even though they looked really rough the first couple of weeks, they were the right move for me. I think that if I would've been open about why I decided to start my dreadlocks, then maybe people would've understood and not been so judgmental about it! The only questions I got were "how long are you going to keep your hair like that?" and "how are you going to brush that out?" I kept saying that I wasn't going to brush it out and that I was going to keep my hair like that for at least 3 years. Again with the stares!!!

Boy, from Day 1, God started giving me humility. There were (and are) times where I take it gracefully, and other times where I take it like a punished child and pout. I knew this was going to happen. I knew what to expect, but still, it was, and is painful. There are days that I feel like I'm really making progress to being a compassionate and understanding person, and other days where I feel like I haven't made a change at all.

I have accepted this as a journey. I have to remind myself of such, and also that it takes patience. I didn't get this way overnight and it's not going to be cured overnight. It took years for me to become a callused hypocrite Christian and it'll take years to undo that. God shows me patience everyday. God shows me that I am imperfect every day and that I need Him to help me change. God is totally helping me to understand other people. They want to be loved. They want to be accepted. They want to fit in. And I see that. Until Jesus comes back, or until I die to this world, God is going to continue to show me and give me eyes to see His children with the great love that He has for them.

Thanks for reading. Be challenged!!!

Love someone that doesn't deserve it... that means everyone.