That Crazy Hair Post

“Do we need a private space?” I asked. Ginnie nodded discreetly as we ducked into the empty room across the hall.

Whatever she needed to tell me, it clearly was not easy breezy.

“Abigail,” Ginnie whispered, her eyes darting from my hair to the spray bottle peeking from her handbag, “I hope it’s okay if I share.”

Low-Maintenance, High-Frizz Hair

Before we open Ginnie’s purse, you should know that low-maintenance types draw me and that I do fight my own minimal-maintenance pride. I wrote about that in “Dissatisfied and Content.” Show me a woman who can wake or workout and be dressed and out the door in under 15 and I’m duly impressed.

No matter to me if her hair is a little crazy or all wet.

But I am learning that untamed hair matters to some. Apologetically Ginnie grabbed the spray bottle and fumbled a few second before she pulled out a folded paper. INFUSIUM 23 across the top.

“I had another friend whose hair grew back a little crazy after his cancer treatments and I got a bottle for him too. This stuff really works,” she said. “I use it too,” she added, patting her very controlled curls.

So this sober little after-church talk was all about the frizz. My hair had become my friend’s burden. This kind sister cared about my unruly hair.

“Thank you. I can hardly wait to give it a try,” I assured her with a smile.

That would have been the end of that and there would have been no crazy hair post, except for what happened two days later.

Bearing (Crazy-Hair) Burdens

“Do you recognize me?” the older gentleman asked, out of the blue, as I was checking out at Walgreens on Tuesday. He was two behind me in line.

Honestly, I hadn’t a clue. My safest bet was to ask if he was from church.

I got lucky. He was. He told me his name and I told him mine. It was friendly enough.

Then the jaw-dropper. “I recognize you because of your crazy hair. You have that wind-blown look.”

For the second time within 48 hours, my crazy hair was the topic. But this time I admit I felt a teensy bit offended. A grown-up man, a (nearly) perfect-stranger had publicly insulted my hair. It’s one thing when a 10-year old student says I look like a Chia pet, and another when a church friend cares enough to tame my with spray, but this was different.

As I pondered his audacity, that line from Proverbs 19:11 about how it is to our “glory to overlook an offense” to mind. I must have done a decent job of it, because as I grabbed my credit card, he stretched his arm toward me with the open wallet in hand.

“Recognize this kid?” he said. I did. It was a new Sunday school student. “I’m his granddad, and I’m trying to get his family to come back to church. I’ve been praying.”

My Crazy-Hair Takeaway

You all know by now that I’m always looking for the lesson. This week it might just be, “take the hint.”

I get that. I’ve been using the spray on my damp hair and it definitely helps. In fact, my husband complimented me on my do the other day. (And, no, Infusium 23 has not paid me.)

Two hair-raising encounters also remind me that Christians should be “the least defensive people on the planet.” Criticism should not make us wither, nor should we be “that sensitive.” It is to our glory to overlook an offense. And she has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.

But my crazy-hair takeaway this week is not those. It is this:

It is a privilege to bear each other’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Ginnie bore mine. She thought my frizz was a my burden and she moved in, despite the awkwardness, to bear that burden. She had the heart and the product to help.

My gentleman friend at Walgreens was a different story. His poor speech filter became my “burden” for a few minutes at the checkout counter. But I think the bigger burden was his estranged grandson.

Now I have the privilege to share that burden, even as Ginnie shared mine.

This is the body of Christ.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

—Galatians 6:2 (ESV)