About a month ago, I experienced what I am calling my EPIC hair emergency, a hair-tastrophy, if you will.

The night started out so lovely. Lew and I were running Saturday errands and having dinner together, alone. It was a sweet time for just he and I to reconnect and enjoy one another’s company, kid-free.

Lew wanted to purchase shooting targets at Walmart.  I decided to go ahead and grab some hair dye to touch up my roots.  I’ve been coloring my own hair for the past year and it has been going well up to this point.

Lew says, “Here, babe, try this color!” He was pointing to a beautiful shade of dark red.

“No,” I say, “That’s WAY to dark for me.”

“Oh, come one, just try it.  I want to see what you would look like with red hair,” he pleads.

I, being the pleaser that I am, give in. “Fine, I’ll try it.”

One bad decision.  That’s all it takes sometimes…

I know, you are all screaming….”No, don’t do it, Susie!!!!” You can feel what’s coming. You can see what’s coming. How could I be SOOOO stupid? I don’t know. Love, combined with the desire to please, makes you do stupid things. At least that’s the case I’m pleading.

So we get home at about 11pm.  I head to the bathroom to work the magic. I concentrate the solution on my roots and hairline where the gray is mostly, just like the directions on the box instructs. I carefully distribute the color from roots to tip.  I start to run low on color-I’ve got a lot of hair.

“Oh well,” I think to myself, “I’ll just smear it all together real good at the end. That should be good.”

I wait 30 minutes.  Oh my….it’s looking VERY red.

I start rinsing.  Wow, that’s really red.

I rinse some more.  Whoa…it’s still coming out really red.

I rinse until I can’t rinse any more. I look in the mirror. O.M.G  I’m truly crying out to God in this moment.

I feel panic rising up in my chest.  Calm down.  It just looks really dark because it’s wet.

I start blow-drying. For.the.love.of.all.that.is.holy.and.good. Pure terror chokes me as I stare at my reflection.  WHAT HAVE I DONE????  WHAT WAS I THINKING???

I shampoo.  Still red.  I shampoo again. Still red. And again and again and again…15 times.  Still red.

Defeated, I wrap my hair in a towel and go downstairs to share my disaster with my “wonderful” husband (*please note sarcasm) so he can see what he coerced me into doing to myself. He says it’s not so bad.  Is he out of his ever-loving mind?!?!? He just doesn’t want to die this very night.

I tell him to ask his internet what to do. Google will help me. Baking soda, vinegar, Palmolive.  By the time we’ve exhausted all measures, my scalp is basically bleeding.  Ouch. Nothing is helping. My hair is RUINED! My life is over. You think I’m overreacting?  I assure you, I’m not.

To understand the severity of the situation, let me draw you a picture with my words.  No, there is no actual picture.  There was NO WAY Lew was taking a picture!

Imagine this with me…Someone has come up behind me with a machete and bludgeoned my head. Blood is completely soaking the top of my head and is pouring in rivers down the back of my hair. Drips and splatters of blood soak the remaining hair.  Yes, my friends.  That is exactly how it was. No exaggeration necessary.  You get it now? It was horrific. Have you ever laughed really hard and cried really hard at the same time?  It’s called hysteria. I know how it feels now.

I finally go to bed around 1am.  Nothing more can be done.  I awake and head to Fantastic Sam’s by 9am.  I’m the first customer to walk through the doors.  Why Fantastic Sam’s and not my usual hair salon?  Because it’s SUNDAY and it’s either there or Walmart.  I know, it just keeps getting better.

I walk in, hair shoved all up in a hat.  I tell the girls I have a hair emergency. I’ve done something really dumb. If they just make me look normal, I’ll never do it again.  A girl named, Erin, tells me to sit down and let her have a look. I warn her that she may scream and run away. She doesn’t even flinch.  She says she can fix me.  She’s seen worse before.  I feel hopeful. She strips my hair.  It turns neon pink.  She rinses.  She strips it again.  Now I look like Princess Peach.  She rinses.  I look like an albino.  Seriously. She puts color back in.  Five hours and nearly $200 later, I look almost normal.  My poor head.  Never again will I try to dye my own hair.  Never. Lesson learned.

A month later, my hair is still recovering.  I had some breakage and had to get a good trim.  But it looks okay, praise God. One person, not knowing what happened, told me that my hair has never looked better. Imagine that!

What an ordeal!!!!

Our lives can be like me and my hair. We try to do things our own way, things we have no business doing.  Sometimes it’s our own willful disobedience to God, sometimes it’s pressure and expectations of others that cause us to make poor decisions.  For whatever reason, we as humans, think we can do this thing called life all by ourselves.

It may work for awhile, but disaster eventually strikes.  Sin prevails.  We try and try and try to fix our mess-ups, but nothing we do can make it right again.

But if we humble ourselves, reach out to God, admit our sin, ask for forgiveness and purpose in our hearts to be different, our lives will be changed.

Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord, Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Just like Erin stripped the blood red from my hair and literally made it as white as snow, God will do the same to your life.  The process of changing and living a life surrendered to God may be hard sometimes, but the finished product will be even better than the original! The Bible says that Jesus makes all things new!

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, all things have become new.”

I urge you today.  If you are not living for Jesus, surrender your life to Him completely.  He will make you clean and new.  He will transform your life into a beautiful masterpiece, something bigger and better than you could imagine yourself!