Haircuts and Rest

A few months ago, I was badly in need of a haircut—longer hair meant more fuzz when it rained and more opportunity for my fourteen-month-olds to yank strands out with their tiny fists. I found a hair salon that worked nights and booked myself an appointment after the kids’ bedtime.

As we drove the darkened highway, I kept up a volleyball game in my mind with shame. Should I really be spending the extra money to go into town to get a haircut? I already ask our in-laws to help so often—is it wrong that I asked for an evening to get my haircut too? Perhaps I should have waited longer. And asking my husband to drive me out when he’s already tired. Is this all just a selfish trip? Thirty minutes later, my husband dropped me off at the salon. 

The place smelled of hairspray and perfume. My heels clunked along the hardwood floors to the reception desk where a girl possibly younger than me escorted me to her chair. I sat down in the leather chair in front of the large mirror; it towered with an intricate gold frame from the floor and vainly reached for the ceiling. 

I met my green eyes in the reflection. My eyes were darkened with exhaustion and my sprigs of gray hair glittered in the light. My complexion was pale. I saw someone in need of more than a haircut. Like Bilbo, “I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.”

I struggle to rest. Any time I take to rest or recover always feels selfish and shameful. Because of this, I often push through, grit my teeth against aching muscles, pry my drooping eyes open, and put my head down to plow forward. But the week prior, my body forced me to stop. I balled my fists and clenched my jaw but my body gave way to crippling anxiety. My body said no, and I had to stop. 

I worked at Christian summer camps three summers in a row in high school where I learned a lot about rest and godliness—but not in a good way. We worked from 7 AM to 9 AM every day with one sixty minute break, and if the kids were up at night, we worked then too. One night, I was up until 3 AM with a camper and was expected to work the usual day the next morning. They taught me that desperately grappling for and fighting for my single break was selfish for someone who was supposed to be serving God and caring for children. If I missed my break, I should simply accept it. Don’t ask for a time to reschedule it—press on and sacrifice. That’s the godly way.

At fifteen years old, I hadn’t considered how Jesus withdrew from the crowds to rest. I forgot about him sleeping in the boat during the storm. I didn’t know the story of Elijah running from his mission field and calling from fear and exhaustion and how God fed him and gave him sleep. I didn’t understand that my limitations were God-given and therefore good.

Through a beloved friend and mentor, God took me by the shoulders, looked me square in the eyes, and taught me about the good limitations he gave me and the beauty of the church carrying one another when we can’t take another step further.

This lesson has been further confirmed as I’m reading through Professor Kelly Kapic’s latest book, You’re Only Human. He writes, “Many of us fail to realize that our limitations are a gift from God, and therefore good. This produces in us the burden of trying to be something we are not and cannot be” (p. 3). He goes on, “Denying our finitude cripples us in ways we don’t realize. It also distorts our view of God and what Christian spirituality should look like” (p. 6).

God is teaching me that without rest, I can’t be who he’s called me to be and fulfill his law properly. I’m learning to respect the limits God wisely gave me—not fight against them like they’re imperfections and mistakes. I also want to model to my children a healthy lifestyle and how trusting God sometimes means leaving the dishes and taking a nap—or booking a hair appointment and calling a babysitter. Bilbo was right—I’m not meant to feel like butter stretched too thin, and since I do, that means something must change.