Bedlam and Blessings - A Magic Hair Chair Epiphany.

I recently found myself frantically rushing around trying to quick get a few things done after work, get supper on the table for my family, and a few bedtime instructions established before rushing off to a hair color and cut appointment for myself, that would have me out of the house for an entire school night evening.

On average I currently allow myself go and get my hair done about twice a year.  It’s usually a three hour appointment where I sit in a chair, chat a little, close my eyes a little, and just get to enjoy a few moments of not being able to do anything but sit for a while. Sit and watch thick glops of blue and red get painted onto portions of my hair and wrapped tight in a perfect arrangements of foils, like a mane of silver upon my head.

It’s a lengthy appointment, and yes, it’s expensive (hence only twice a year at this point). I know I am very fortunate to be forty-four years old and only have just a recent light whispering of grey hairs, so while I like my hair to overall “look nice” - I don’t feel the pressure of having to get my roots colored or having to color all of my hair yet. In time this will come, I’m well aware… but for now I have been blessed with fairly slow aging hair.

I rushed around, grumbling in my head about all that needed to get done and wasn’t, making cheeseburger bets with myself if the hubs would have the boy in bed and asleep before I got back home, betting myself that he wouldn’t and I would need to walk in late and deal with that, and probably some unfinished homework, dirty dishes on the counter and sink, and who knows what else.

There was also this whole frustrated inner dialogue about having to have an apt so late at night because I am working all day full time, and worried about having to pay for it, but good hair care is an absolute work of art, so I am more than willing to pay for time and talent. I didn’t know if I should cut my hair differently or just leave it generally as is, heck I didn’t even have time to go through picts online to see if there was anything different that I might want to try for the colors.

I rushed out the driveway, rushed through the door of the beauty shop, rushed to sit down, pulled up my phone and pulled up the same two or three photos I always show her that I like of cut and color, got the cape all velcro’d around my neck, and she was off to the back to mix up her three magic bowls of color that somehow goes in one color and comes out another. Love it.

And then it was silent. There weren’t any other customers or stylists currently there, the evening was quickly fading into darkness outside the large front windows, and the sky had just opened up with just torrential rains.

Silence. Stillness… after all the crazy, all the busy, all the running around...  Silence. Stillness.

And in that moment, I was struck by an epiphany… a reality of thoughts and realizations that struck close to home. Nothing new and nothing epic, nothing I haven’t really thought about in some form or another throughout my life.

Here I was, on a Tuesday evening, in the #magichairchair as I have come to call it, desperately trying to just catch up to myself, catch up to my life for just a few moments. As I sat and breathed in deep the silence around me, these thoughts began to fill my mind and prick at my heart.

I rushed there after work. Because I am blessed to have a full time job which pays most of the bills and gives our family the blessing of healthcare and benefits and allows my husband to continue to follow his dreams by working for himself at a construction company that he and his friend have built from the ground up (literately and figuratively).

I have the great blessing of health right now, which gives me all this hair on my head that I get to even cut and color. I am blessed to be able to make these appointments to come in and have my hair cut and colored, and I get to be vain and splurge and take a few hours off of life and responsibilities a few times a year while someone else helps make me beautiful. Not everyone has health, has hair, has the freedom to splurge a little on the expenses of beauty shop makeovers by talented artists.

I was grumbling over the state of my house, the mess, the stress, the activity and responsibilities I often feel so overwhelmed and frustrated by.

But I am blessed to have a house to live in, a nice house full of nice things (too many nice things which just cause for clutter and more work if we’re completely honest here). I have cupboards and a fridge full of food. I have a closet full of clothes and shoes. I have two running vehicles that are parked in our garage every night - in a garage that is also so full of things and clutter that I can usually barely get to and from my car to the house because of all that's lining the walls out there.

I am blessed to have a husband and children. I have one that is already out on his own living and loving his life, who once upon a time I stressed over and fretted about and ran myself weary trying to keep up with and get him through adolescence. And you know what, now he’s not even living in our house any more, he’s already grown and on his own. I have a feisty middle youngest child (that should have caused my entire head to be full of gray hairs) who pushes and tests every single button in my body daily. He causes me tears and anger and frustration and so much love and joy all at the same time, and you know what… I can’t even take the ownership for his existence, as there was a beautiful lady with a beautiful soul who chose to give her beautiful little boy to us eleven years ago through the gift of adoption. There are no words to describe that kind of blessing. And our youngest, she got the blessing of getting to wake up in Heaven four year ago. I mean really, what mother doesn’t wish their child to be free from sin and sickness and sadness? She got blessed to have to never know anything different.

I could go on and on about all the things in our lives that so easily and quickly we turn into these burdens and hardships, that we view with disdain and disgust and frustrations. We grumble at ourselves and we grumble and those living with and around us. We zero in on all the bad, the inconveniences, the stress, the overwhelm we willing allow to envelope us by taking in and taking on more than we should and definitely more than we need.

All these things we grumble about, rushing about having to do… are all actually huge blessings… it’s just all in the way we stop and allow ourselves to view and review it. Yes, all lumped together in a steady stream of unrest and unending to-do lists of things to complete and cross off, are all actually things that God has given us, blessed us to have, do, enjoy.

We don’t have to worry about where we’re going to sleep, or where our next meal is coming from. We don’t have to worry about third world issues of clean water and electricity and having our most basic needs met, all of which we are often completely blind to in our attempt to survive all our first world issues.

Homework, sporting activities, appointments, meetings, meal making, cleaning and house work, getting groceries, getting gas, replacing and repairing all those unwanted house repairs and expenses, and the list could go on for a mile or more if I continued.

But in that moment, as the rain beat upon the roof, I closed my eyes and smiled. I breathed in deep and merely allowed myself to let all of that stress and bedlam just rest in the background of my mind for a few short hours, and I focused on my blessings… all my many many blessings, and I thanked the Lord as I counted them one by one.

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