I have been wearing two-strand twists in my hair for almost two months now and it is time for them to COME OUT!
So, Wednesday evening I gathered a "crew" together to start the LONG process of freeing my natural tresses. After about 4 1/2 tedious hours, I was FREE! After I finished detangling, washing, and conditioning my hair, I was very happy to have my own hair back.
This is a testimony because this has not always been so. I didn’t always like my hair and I used to get very frustrated with it. To me, it never looked “quite right.” No matter what I did to my hair, twists, curls, straight, ponytail, etc., I was never satisfied.
What God has been showing me is that it really has nothing to do with my hair, I didn’t like myself. I used to hide behind makeup and jewelry, and weaves because I didn’t like the person I thought was underneath. I can’t name a time when I would look in a mirror and say that I looked good without finding something to criticize about myself:
My eyebrows are too bushy
My hair is too nappy/my hair isn't curly enough
So, Wednesday evening I gathered a "crew" together to start the LONG process of freeing my natural tresses. After about 4 1/2 tedious hours, I was FREE! After I finished detangling, washing, and conditioning my hair, I was very happy to have my own hair back.
This is a testimony because this has not always been so. I didn’t always like my hair and I used to get very frustrated with it. To me, it never looked “quite right.” No matter what I did to my hair, twists, curls, straight, ponytail, etc., I was never satisfied.
What God has been showing me is that it really has nothing to do with my hair, I didn’t like myself. I used to hide behind makeup and jewelry, and weaves because I didn’t like the person I thought was underneath. I can’t name a time when I would look in a mirror and say that I looked good without finding something to criticize about myself:
My eyebrows are too bushy
My hair is too nappy/my hair isn't curly enough
My skin is too dull/dry
My hair won’t lay right/my hair won’t sit up right
My teeth aren’t white enough
Blah, blah, blah, etc.
(I’m writing all this to expose the lies of the enemy! He gets us so focused on our “faults” that it’s hard to be thankful for what God has given us!)
I have had a lot of self-confidence issues and it has been very hard for me to understand how anyone could love me because I didn’t love myself. I was too busy trying to find myself in the world’s standards and in other people, looking to others to figure out my worth. Compared to other people, I wasn’t smart enough, funny enough, skinny enough, pretty enough, curvy enough, girly enough, fashionable enough, my hair isn’t long enough or straight enough or curly enough, the lists goes on and on…
At the end of the day I didn’t feel like I was worth very much.
At The Well, I talked to my discipler about this and she recommended reading scriptures about who I am in Christ. The next step was to take these scriptures and speak them over myself. One place she suggested starting was at Psalm 139. The verses that really stuck with me were Psalm 139:13-18
For You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You. (NKJV)
My hair won’t lay right/my hair won’t sit up right
My teeth aren’t white enough
Blah, blah, blah, etc.
(I’m writing all this to expose the lies of the enemy! He gets us so focused on our “faults” that it’s hard to be thankful for what God has given us!)
I have had a lot of self-confidence issues and it has been very hard for me to understand how anyone could love me because I didn’t love myself. I was too busy trying to find myself in the world’s standards and in other people, looking to others to figure out my worth. Compared to other people, I wasn’t smart enough, funny enough, skinny enough, pretty enough, curvy enough, girly enough, fashionable enough, my hair isn’t long enough or straight enough or curly enough, the lists goes on and on…
At the end of the day I didn’t feel like I was worth very much.
At The Well, I talked to my discipler about this and she recommended reading scriptures about who I am in Christ. The next step was to take these scriptures and speak them over myself. One place she suggested starting was at Psalm 139. The verses that really stuck with me were Psalm 139:13-18
For You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You. (NKJV)
I have read these verses many times before, but after praying and really digging into it, I was revolutionized by this revelation: God made me who I am.
This may not sound like an astonishing revelation, but follow me here. I remember watching this Skit Guys video on Godtube.com and one of the guys said that God doesn’t make junk. Everything that God makes is amazing; look at the clouds and the trees and the stars, they’re beautiful. In verse 14 it says that all of God’s works are marvelous, which is true. So, if all on God’s works are marvelous, then I must be marvelous.
This may not sound like an astonishing revelation, but follow me here. I remember watching this Skit Guys video on Godtube.com and one of the guys said that God doesn’t make junk. Everything that God makes is amazing; look at the clouds and the trees and the stars, they’re beautiful. In verse 14 it says that all of God’s works are marvelous, which is true. So, if all on God’s works are marvelous, then I must be marvelous.
If God has skillfully wrought me together and took his time to form me, then I must be valuable.
If God has precious thoughts towards me, then I must be precious. And if God thinks about me more times than there are grains of sand, then I must be important because God doesn’t take precious time out of His busy schedule to think about junk.
Man, I’m starting to sound pretty good!
So I took these verses and started to speak them over myself. When I would look into the mirror, as soon as a critical thought would pop up, I would say, “No, I am fearfully and wonderfully made because God makes marvelous things and God made me who I am.” As I began to think about what God thinks of me, the opinions of the world didn’t seem to matter as much. And I know it is God, because all of a sudden, I started looking at myself in the mirror and I noticed I was looking better!
At first, I would say, “I’m looking not-so-bad today.”
Then, “Hmmm, I’m looking pretty good.”
And, all of a sudden, I was like, “Man! When did I start looking so good?”
God has been doing an amazing work on me. I remember a time when I wouldn’t go out the door without makeup on because I was self-conscious about my skin. I remember when I used to feel ugly and naked if I didn’t have earrings on. I remember when I used to get weaves all the time and if I didn’t have this extra hair on my head I’d feel bald-headed.
God started dealing with the makeup and earrings first, showing me that I shouldn’t need materials things to make me feel better about how I looked or who I was. After freeing me from all of that, it came to the hair.
And I don’t know what it is about Black women and their hair.
I have done so much to my tresses trying to make myself look and feel a certain way. But, every time, no matter what I did and no matter how many compliments I received, I wasn’t ever satisfied. When I first went natural, I would hide my hair in weaves and braids so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I never felt like I looked beautiful, especially not with natural hair.
But this is the way God made me, natural and beautiful; who am I to argue with Him?
Another version of Psalm 139:13-18 reads:
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, You know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.
Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them! I couldn't even begin to count them—any more than I could count the sand of the sea. (The Message)
I am so happy and thankful for my hair now; there are so many people in this world that can’t grow hair. There all people with all different types of diseases that take their hair out. Some of them would give almost anything for the hair I have on my head. God has blessed me and it is a shame that I was too busy listening to the lies of the enemy for so many years to even be grateful and see my full head of hair as a blessing.
If God has precious thoughts towards me, then I must be precious. And if God thinks about me more times than there are grains of sand, then I must be important because God doesn’t take precious time out of His busy schedule to think about junk.
Man, I’m starting to sound pretty good!
So I took these verses and started to speak them over myself. When I would look into the mirror, as soon as a critical thought would pop up, I would say, “No, I am fearfully and wonderfully made because God makes marvelous things and God made me who I am.” As I began to think about what God thinks of me, the opinions of the world didn’t seem to matter as much. And I know it is God, because all of a sudden, I started looking at myself in the mirror and I noticed I was looking better!
At first, I would say, “I’m looking not-so-bad today.”
Then, “Hmmm, I’m looking pretty good.”
And, all of a sudden, I was like, “Man! When did I start looking so good?”
God has been doing an amazing work on me. I remember a time when I wouldn’t go out the door without makeup on because I was self-conscious about my skin. I remember when I used to feel ugly and naked if I didn’t have earrings on. I remember when I used to get weaves all the time and if I didn’t have this extra hair on my head I’d feel bald-headed.
God started dealing with the makeup and earrings first, showing me that I shouldn’t need materials things to make me feel better about how I looked or who I was. After freeing me from all of that, it came to the hair.
And I don’t know what it is about Black women and their hair.
I have done so much to my tresses trying to make myself look and feel a certain way. But, every time, no matter what I did and no matter how many compliments I received, I wasn’t ever satisfied. When I first went natural, I would hide my hair in weaves and braids so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I never felt like I looked beautiful, especially not with natural hair.
But this is the way God made me, natural and beautiful; who am I to argue with Him?
Another version of Psalm 139:13-18 reads:
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, You know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.
Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them! I couldn't even begin to count them—any more than I could count the sand of the sea. (The Message)
I am so happy and thankful for my hair now; there are so many people in this world that can’t grow hair. There all people with all different types of diseases that take their hair out. Some of them would give almost anything for the hair I have on my head. God has blessed me and it is a shame that I was too busy listening to the lies of the enemy for so many years to even be grateful and see my full head of hair as a blessing.
And natural hair is so beautiful! You can do so many different things with it; I am having a lot of fun right now experimenting and trying out new hairstyles. And it is just me, or has natural hair become the new "thing" all of a sudden? When I look at women with natural hair, I am amazed by their uniqueness, creativity, and boldness. And it all just shows me how cool God really is.
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