This is What FREEDOM Looks Like!

This memory showed up in my Facebook memory this month and it surely reminded me of the journey to finding the real me.


On 9/11/09 I wrote this with this picture:


I have been contemplating cutting my hair for about 6 months....and today I woke up feeling the need to release some things and claim a new me...so I did it. No pomp and circumstance...just a meeting with my hubby to discuss it...got his approval..and than to the bathroom...got the scissors and began the cutting process. Next...to the barbershop to seal the deal! I have been through every valley imaginable this past year...and I just needed to declare that this is a new season for me...no more holding on to the past...AND THE CHANGE BEGANS WITH ME!!! I feel soooo FREE!!!
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That freedom for me came on September 11, 2009.

September 11, 2009 started as any normal day for me. Shortly after my aunt’s passing in December 2008 I was laid off from my contract job so my daily routine was to pray and spend time with the Lord in my Sanctuary. After my morning prayer time, I felt different. I was anxious and unsettled. I called for Monte and told him we needed to have a family meeting; we call these meetings periodically when we need to seriously talk. He walks into our bedroom and I sit him beside me on the couch. Now picture this, my hair was all over my head as I was preparing to relax my hair and I expressed to him again my need to cut my hair. 
 
He tried to talk me out of it again. 
 
Then suddenly he stops and looks at me with a look of concern and says, ”You know what, I am tired of you saying that you want to cut your hair. CUT IT IF YOU WANT.” I went directly to the bathroom and grabbed the scissors; he sat down on the edge of the tub. I looked at him and said are you sure, He replied, “go ahead if you want to.” I grabbed a section of hair and *SNIP*! The look on his face was one of astonishment. I grabbed another section and *SNIP. * He looked at me and said, “Wow, no turning back now” and I said with assuredness “I don’t want to.” 
 
The more I cut, the better I felt. 10 years ago with the snip of the scissors a cutting away happened in the natural and spiritual. It was something I needed to do to discover the new me after the storm!

That storm started on July 19, 2008. My life changed forever.

My beloved father passed away then shortly after the passing of my father, my maternal aunt, who was my pastor at my home church passed away December 9, 2008. My father was my rock and my aunt was an anointed woman of God who had such spiritual insight. They were my spiritual covering. So can you imagine the grief and pain that my soul was in when I lost them both in a four-month time span? There was a five year period of my life that I was losing loved ones one after another; my maternal grandfather, my paternal grandfather, a paternal aunt by marriage, my dad and then my maternal aunt, all this while still pressing through all loss in our personal lives were occurring. God was still providing and showing up but in those quiet moments, I would become depressed. The grief ate away at my soul and I began to relive the pain of loosing them over and over again. I was carrying the weight of grief from the loss of my dad and aunt, insecurities, anxiety, feelings of abandonment physically and emotionally, feeling victimized by those I trusted - my soul was longing for healing. Then the Spirit began tugging at me to do the big chop and I conceded. After I snipped, the Father sent me to the book of Job and I read that Job had a similar experience. Job 1:20 says, 

"Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped."
 
We all know the story of Job. He was good and faithful servant. The scriptures states that one day when the son’s of God came to present themselves to him, Satan came with them. And God asked Satan where he had been.  Satan replies, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” God than asks Satan what did he think of his servant Job as he was pious, upright and blameless. Satan told God that Job is pious because he (God) had a “hedge of protection around" him and he "blessed" his favorite servant with prosperity; but if God touches "his possessions" then Job would surely curse him. God gives Satan permission to test Job. So than Satan attacks Job and all of Job's possessions are destroyed and a wind causes the house of the firstborn to collapse killing all of Job's children who were gathered for a feast. Job does not curse God after this but instead shaves his head, tears his clothes and says, 

"Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: Lord has given, and Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of Lord" 

As Job endures these calamities he did not curse God but he praised him through it all.

That one snip of the scissor 10 years ago began a spiritual journey for me just as it did Job. 

I learned is that in your worst, you respond in prayer and a praise!  

As you can see this decision was not one of vanity but a spiritual one. The grief was just too much for me to carry. And just like Job, I tore my clothes and shaved my head as a public display of the sadness and grief. But once I did that, joy came just like Job.  I fell to my knees and praised Him for what He was doing and what He was to do in my life. And not only did it strengthen me spiritually, it strengthened my marriage. It caused my husband to look at me differently, he loves the natural me more than I do! 

​My family thought I was crazy. My friends didn't understand my decision. But  I took the journey to being natural and learned the real texture of my hair, I discovered the real YOLANDA. Looking back it was one of the BEST decisions I ever made to reclaim ME. Plus, the versatility my natural hair has afforded me has been gratifying. ​This journey to  being natural has been a mountaintop experience that brought transformation,  renewal, freedom and liberty.