Sacred Mundane: The Blog

The story I’ll never live down…

So I’ve been waiting patiently to tell this story until I had the green light from my husband.  Sometimes it takes some time before you can share things … and I knew I’d done enough harm that from now on I would let Jeff make the calls about, well, everything.  This is a little story to you ladies about what not to do to your husbands.

So, my incredibly handsome, fit, trim, intelligent, amazing husband has some serious gray-hair genes.  His dad was absolutely silver before he was 40.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I admit I’m not ready for my tall, dark, and handsome husband to be tall, silver, and handsome…at least not yet. So he’s got some gray hair which looks fabulous, but I came up with the idea that before he started his new job it’d be fun dye his hair, just to keep the gray from becoming, let’s say, overly aggressive and getting out of control.  “It’ll be fun!” I said.

Jeff, however, is not a hair-dye kind of guy. He was adamately opposed. “It’s not honest,” he insisted. “I want to be the real me.  Gray hair and all. I am who I am and I want people to know that what they see is what they get.”  To my eternal chagrin I persisted: “But honey, you’re doing it for me. It’s not dishonest, it’s just like how I take care of myself to bless you.  It’s just like that. Puh-lease??”  Oh dear. I can almost hear Eve’s syrupy voice echoing through my head: “Come’on Adam…it’s so tasty.  Won’t you show me how much you love me by eating with me. Puh-lease???”  Batting her ridiculous eyelashes.  Good grief.

So, he succombed to my pressure.  So I tried a dark brown color, and though it was fine, it definitely did NOT look like his natural color.  It was just off enough to draw my eye constantly to his head…definitely not what I’d hoped for.  So, one week before he started his new job, late on a Friday night, after we’d watched a movie and were about to head to bed, I suggest that I do one more fix-it on his hair to get it to the darker black color that he naturally is.  Again, sweet husband of mine, gave in.

Mind you this is 10pm on a Friday night. Where my idiotic mind was I have no idea. The next day we were both in a wedding, serving communion.  The following day, Sunday, was our special going-away service at church where Jeff would be up front on the stage sharing with the congregation about our new plans.  Then, he had school, then that following Wednesday we had a special Welcome Luncheon with all the staff at our new church. Then he would start work at his new job, Mr. Associate Pastor, the following Monday.  Do you get the picture?

Fix-it dye #2 is a disaster.  His hair, apparently because it had already been dyed, took the dye WAY to heavy and it turned GOTH black, like blue-black, the kind that’s so shiny it’s like a Halloween wig.  Seriously.  It also had gotten all over his forehead and ears and dyed them black. So he had a black hairline, black ears, and black nceck.  I tried to pretend it wasn’t that bad, but when Jeff went downstairs to straighten things up, I crawled in bed and started crying. It was horrible.  He looked ridiculous, like he had a big black wig on.  What do I do? Panicking I get online and starting google searches about undoing horrible hair colors. I find out about a product called Color Woops or something and see that Walgreens carries it and that Walgreens is open until 11pm.  WIthout a word I dry my tears, march downstairs, in my sweats, slip on some flipflops, grab my purse, walk out the door, and drive to Walgreens where I find my magic stuff.

Back home now, I show him the magic stuff and he agrees to let me try.  His scalp is feeling a bit tender, having been dyed twice now, but we figure we’re almost done with the horror. This stuff will supposedly take hair “back to its natural color”.  Perfect.  We apply, wait the allotted time. Rinse.  NO. No, no, no.  HORROR beyond HORROR. Now the roots have turned BRIGHT orange, like a pumpkin, and the ends of his hair are still black.  Plus, it’s blotchy, so it looks like he’s used that orange and black spray on color people use at Halloween or OSU football games.  NOT ok for a wedding.  NOT ok for a first day of work as the new pastor. Not ok.  More tears.  Prayers. Pleading with God to somehow erase my stupidity.

Trip to Fred Meyer. Another color.  Again, it goes straight to GOTH black.  This time we decide we must go to bed, as its midnight and Jeff’s scalp is burning so bad he’s groaning and clenching his fists while we wait for the color to set.  I’m crying. Praying. Pleading.

The next morning I have to meet someone out of town, so I’m forced to leave my poor ebony-haired husband home with our son. He’s supposed to drive Dutch out to Mom & Dad’s so that we can leave for the wedding at 12:30.  I have to leave the house at 8:20. At 8:05 I race to Fred Meyer to try one last color, a lighter one.  We put it on, rinse. At 8:40 his hair is blacker than ever and I have to leave.  Crying the whole way down I-5 I’m convinced I’ve ruined my husband’s life.  We talk on the phone and decide that since he’s driving Dutch out to Mom & Dad’s he can stop by the store, get one more Oops Color and a lighter shade of brown, and dye his hair by himself at my parents’ house before coming back and meeting me for the wedding.  Ok, good.  I’m feeling horrible about the fact that he has to walk into a drug storeby himself and buy Oops Color and hair dye, feeling I’m sure like a complete idiot. I tell him to explain to everyone he sees that it’s his WIFE who is the idiot, not him. Of course he won’t do that.

So to make matters worse, we discover that the keys to his car are in my purse. He has no keys. Cannot take Dutch out to Mom and Dad’s.  Cannot drive to the store to get hair product.  So the man WALKS to the store, with our son, pushing a stroller. I still cannot even fathom the courage this must have taken, to walk proudly into a drug store, pushing a toddler boy in our ghetto stroller, and buying Oops color and hair dye.  He wore a hat, but he said the lady at the counter couldn’t keep a straight face. Bless his heart.

To make a long story a tiny bit shorter, suffice it to say that we did a total of TEN treatments on Jeff’s hair.  His scalp literally started blistering and falling off.  For a week chunks of skin kept flaking off.  And his hair is still an odd purple-red-blackish color.  Do you think I’ve learned my lesson?  Oh dearie.  Yes I have.

But this is what amazes me about my husband.  He never once blamed me or got angry.  He NEVER lost his temper or got frustrated. In fact, selfish me was crying and saying how horrible the whole situation was and how stupid I am and he comforted ME, insisting it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t know how bad it would be.  He never once told people, “My stupid wife did this to me.”  He turned the whole thing into a joke, unafraid of admitting what had happened.  Last week at church he was given a chance to introduce himself and briefly share his testimony. He opened by saying, “If my hair looks purple it’s because it is.  In a few weeks it’ll be gray. You’ll have to ask us about that story.”

But this is what haunted me through this whole thing:  How my stupid decision hurt no one but the one who deserved it least. I deserved to have ruined hair. I deserved to have my scalp burning off and blistering and flaking off in chunks. I deserved to look ridiculous and have to explain to everyone that I was an idiot.  But my hair looks just fine. It’s my husband who suffers. My sweet, kind, caring, humble, gentle husband who suffers because of my decision.  I kept pleading with God, “Lord, please don’t let Jeff suffer because of my stupidity.” And yet I kept sensing that God was teaching me something I would never forget–our selfish, stupid decisions hurt those we love the most.  And so often others suffer the consequences of our stupid decisions.  IT doesn’t seem fair, but it’s true.  We see it everywhere. Children suffer from the divorce of their parents.  Unborn children suffer for the decisions of their parents.  Victims everywhere suffer because of others’ stupid decisions.  Our actions and decisions affect others profoundly.

But more than any of those examples…our Lord Jesus Himself. Even now tears stream down my cheeks as I realize that ultimately THE Innocent One suffered for our sin.  The one who least deserved to die was crucified so that our sin could be atoned.  The innocent for the guilty.  The consequences ofmy sin poured out on the perfect sinless One.  Oh Jesus help us understand.  Help us understand.

God also was showing me how costly our sin is. Though dyeing Jeff’s hair might not have been sin per se, it was definitely stupid and selfish, and selfishness is sin.  You want to know how much we spent on hair treatments? Yeah, close to $100.  That’s costly all right.  Ridiculously costly.  I lost sleep. I was exhausted Monday morning at school because I’d spent all night dyeing hair and all day worrying about it.  I was anxious about meeting new people because I was afraid they’d think, “What on earth did he do to his hair?”  The anxiety of it sapped my energy, my joy, my vitality.  This is what sin does.  This is what selfishness does. How costly was the sin in the garden? How costly is my daily sin? Your daily sin?  Beyond comprehension. It was so costly that it took the perfect sinless Son of God to die a cruel death to remove our guilt.  Do you think sin is costly?  We have no idea.

So I take away from this hair dye trauma the lesson that we as women have incredible power to help or harm our husbands, children, friends.  Every day we make decisions that bless, edify, help, encourage, or that harm.  And others live with the consequences of our actions.  No one sins in a bubble. I take away that my Savior suffered for my sin.  He bore a lot more shame that Jeff did with his purple hair. He bore every ounce of sin and shame and pain from every sinful deed.  He bore it all.

I will say that the $100 was worth it to gain this lesson. I will never forget it. I think I’ll forever walk a little less proudly.  I think I’ll question myself a little more often.  I pray that God gives me grace in the midst of my stupidity, my vanity, my selfishness.  I pray He helps us understand the power of our influence, and the great cost of our selfish and stupid decisions.  It may have only been Jeff’s hair, but it represents so much more.  It represents Christ.

I’m thankful to report that Jeff’s scalp has healed. His hair is still kind of purpleish, but in a few weeks I’m sure he’ll be back to his normal, wonderful, dark graying self.  I will never again try to alter my man.  He is perfect for me.  He is gracious, forgiving, gentle, merciful, loving. And I’ll forever understand just a little better the way Eve must have felt.  I’m ashamed to admit how much like her I really am. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for suffering the consequences of our sin.  I cannot say it enough. Thank You Lord Jesus.