Lent: Day 5 – The day I cut my hair off.

The first Sunday of Lent. A day to reflect on Christ’s time in the desert. I read this devotional about it with this picture included, and I absolutely loved this picture. I think it’s supposed to be Jesus and Satan, and I love that Jesus is like “talk to the hand.”

Right? That’s the sassy Jesus that comes out from time to time!

It is easy for us to say that we are alone in enduring our sufferings because Christ was perfect and did not sin, so how could he possibly understand the weight of temptation as someone who never gave in? Pastor Matt Hannan once used this example. Consider two road signs on either side of the street. The wind starts gently blowing and gaining speed. At 25 mph, the signs start shaking. The wind increases to 30 mph… 35…. 40…. and one street sign falls down. But the wind continues to pick up speed… 45…. 55… 60… the wind reaches 70 miles per hour before it dies down. Which street sign understands the full power of the wind?

Keep that in mind as you contemplate Christ’s time in the desert. Though he did not give in to temptation, he endured it to the highest degree – especially because, as Hannah pointed out this evening, the salvation of the world was at stake. Satan would not have held anything back, he would have gone all out to try and tempt the perfect Lamb to acquire blemishes.

Today I have been grieving for my friend. My friend is hurting, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it aside from pray and offer encouragement. It has weighed heavy on my heart. I spent a few hours in Starbucks reading my Bible before I came home to shower. My shower took forever because my heart was so heavy. I was being still and quiet and got this overwhelming sense of urgency to cut my hair.

If you know me, you know that I am kind of attached to my hair {aren’t we all, really? haha…. anyway} and would rather walk through fire than cut my hair {though walking through fire would probably destroy my hair, but oh well}. But there in the shower, I felt this strange urgency. Not an impulse, mind you, as cutting my hair is not exciting, thrilling or enjoyable to me.

So I got out of the shower, and when Hannah walked into the apartment I was putting my hair into a ponytail to cut it. I tried explaining to Hannah how weird it was; I kept saying “what could I do?” in response to this gut feeling.

This is what I did:


It does not look nice, it does not make me happy, but I feel as if those two facts are irrelevant because there was an undeniable moving within me to do this.

Notice that I am using language that we usually use to describe the Holy Spirit’s leading without actually attributing it to the Spirit. I want to say it was, because it was similar to other experiences I’ve had where the Spirit has sought from me an immediate reaction, but it just seems too weird and irrelevant.

I consumed a lot of free icedcoffeewithmilkandcaramel refills, and make frequent trips to the bathroom. Time for another one.