And So the Battle Rages

I have an ongoing battle with my hair.  Obnoxiously curly is the best way I can describe it.  I've heard it all so don't even start... "You are lucky.  My hair won't even hold a perm," "I wish I had half the curl you have," "People pay good money to have hair like yours," etc.   

Don't get me wrong, when done correctly curly hair is beautiful and I do not wish that I had straight hair, and I am grateful that I have hair at all, but I would like for what I have to look better than it has.  I just want it to look like I actually care about its condition for appearance's sake.
 
So, armed with a picture that I found on the internet, I headed off to a local fancy-schmancy  hair salon, plopped myself in the hairdresser's chair and said "You're in for a treat."  Hairdresser took a look at my picture, took a look at my hair and said "I'm not too sure about this.  You'll actually have to *DO* something to your hair every day if I give you this cut."  Yes, he emphasized *DO*.    I replied "Let's go for it."  As he hacked off masses of curls, his hope rose to the point of saying "I think this *MIGHT* work after all!"  Yes, he emphasized *MIGHT*.  Cheeky fella!

Well, it has been a couple weeks since then and I've done fairly well at actually DOING something with my hair most days.  Mind you, I've never had the same results twice, and have had varying degrees of success.

Enter Delmarva humidity...

Some days I can get away with a quick blow dry.  But because of the humidity, today is not one of those days.  I will lay odds that we will not have another one of those days until at least September.  Probably October.  I dried my hair this morning, it didn't look too bad.  I went outside, spent about 10 minutes putting a couple flowers into their pots, walked past a mirror and... WHOA! Frizz 'fro!  So my hair and I had a conversation. I'll spare you the details. I don't want you to think I've gone completely off the deep end.

I can get the best hair cut, buy the costliest products, blow dry and flat iron til my arms grow heavy but at the end of the day, I still have curly hair.  As I work with it more and more it becomes a quicker process, but a process still.  I still need to wrestle with it the next day.

So, as I am in the process of conquering my hair, I realized that this ongoing battle is a metaphor for the life of a Christ-follower.  At least for this Christ-follower.  Flesh vs. Spirit.  My will vs. God's will.   Who is going to win?

I can pray, study, worship, and say all the right things, do all the right things but at the end of the day I'm still just a bag of flesh, a sinner in need of a Savior.  But I also know that I must wrestle it so that it will look like I actually care about its condition.  Not for appearance's sake, but for reflection's sake.