I was confident the box colour I was washing off my daughter’s hair wasn’t going to stay the orangey, yellow, brassy nightmare that was unfolding before my eyes. I tried to stay cool, calm and collected while I kept muttering to myself in a slightly too high-pitched voice, “It’s gonna be fine. I can fix this. I can fix this.”  

Panic-stricken, my ‘pretend her hair looks okay’ acting role finally became unglued as my daughter looked in the bathroom mirror at the disaster on her head.

 At this point I was hyperventilating and my heart was pounding like a bass drum inside my chest, ready and waiting for the tears of a teenager whose hair had been wrecked by her own mother. Her own mother! 

   But that’s not what happened at all. She just calmly said, “Mum, calm down. Don’t worry, it’s fixable.” 

• 

IT’S FIXABLE. 

I think when we bring our anxious, apprehensive, distressed thoughts to God, He just calmly says, “Don’t worry, it’s fixable.” 

My daughter reminded me of a scripture. 1 Peter 5:7, ’Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.’ As she read it, I took a deep breath and felt my anxious thoughts disappear. “It’s fixable,” I kept saying to myself.   

Rehearsing in your mind of how it all went wrong over and over again (as I do) isn’t healthy and it’s certainly not helpful. Feelings of disappointment wash over you because you didn’t foresee the future and you didn’t plan for every scenario that could go wrong. 

• 

   God wants us to lay down our anxious, panic-stricken thoughts that are rooted in our pride and our need to  control everything and replace it with His peace and grace. 

Satan is all too willing to show you the road signs that lead down that rabbit hole of despair as he whispers to you, “Tut, tut, tut. How could you permit your poised-polished-perfect-power trip to become so unraveled? You’ve done it now. You cannot fix this mistake. It’s unfixable.”

So, you sit in a ball at the bottom of the rabbit hole, wallowing in your regret.  

But in the shadows there is a mighty outstretched hand that beckons you. Through the fog of anxious thoughts God whispers, “Don’t worry, it’s fixable.”  

Control freaks listen up! God is the fixer of all things. Psalm 147:3 reminds us that, ‘He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.’ And He does it in a way that far exceeds our efforts. We don’t have to try and fix everything. 

LOSING THE NEED TO CONTROL EVERYTHING

One trip down the shops and two purple toners later, I was a happy little bunny. And even though my hands resembled the skin tone of Violet Beauregarde in Charlie and the chocolate factory, I didn’t care. My daughter was right; her hair was fixable and it turned out great.

• 

(It’s okay, Wendy, you don’t have to send your daughter away to a monastery until the colour grows out)

     Take away from this whole experience? 

When I feel overwhelmed, anxious and the need to control things, God wants me to cast all my anxieties onto Him. 

And when Satan whispers of how much of a loser you are, you’ll tell him that, yes, you are a loser. If losing pride and the need for control is what brings us to a place of surrender, then yes, we are all losers.

Gaining grace, peace and unconditional love is totally worth losing all that junk!  

Don’t you agree? 

Wendy xo