Matted

Hola! Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this and take it in. Let’s get to it!

Matted ➡️ Conditioning ➡️ Detangling ➡️ Maintenance

I’ve serviced some severely matted wigs and bundles from clients before. My usual course of action is to restore the hair back to its intended state— I condition, detangle, and advise the client to implement certain habits in order to maintain a healthier state of hair. For example, I always tell clients to brush their wigs & bundles regularly. Why? Because consistent brushing every day can save you (or me 😅) from strenuous detangling in a few weeks or months. I also tell clients not to just brush the part everyone can see. PLEASE get the back of the wig too 🥹 lol. Because that area you don’t pay much attention to and think nobody can really see, yeah, that’s where hair gets matted the most 🤧 But let’s be honest, sometimes laziness sets in. Maybe you don’t feel like taking the extra step to brush through your wig or bundles every night. Just know, it’s the lack of maintenance that eventually leads back to matted hair.

And yes, you guessed it— This isn’t about hair. This is about walking with Christ.

Easily Entangled

Every single one of us has experienced a “matted” state of living because it’s so easy to get caught up in the things of this world. And thinking back to the sinful nature we’re all born with, you can understand how we all have certain vices that incline us to indulge in sinful activities, habits, or desires. Not to mention, traumatic events and life-changing experiences can create even more of a void that leads us to these same indulgences. Remember how we talked about our identity in Christ and how we must die to ourselves daily? That plays a huge part in your state of living. Even after we’ve received salvation, those vices don’t just go away, and the trauma isn’t magically healed.

I can tell you I personally accepted salvation at a young age, and I’ve been thanking God for a long time. But when it comes to a true relationship with God, finding my identity in God, truly surrendering my entire life and everything in it to God… I’m only a few years into this process (and notice I said PROCESS because it doesn’t happen overnight). I WAS MATTED. It took doing the hard thing and tending to areas in me that other people couldn’t even see to detangle from all of the things hindering my growth. And don’t be mistaken, it was not in my own strength. The Holy Spirit empowered me to do it only after I surrendered. Hebrews 12:1 says, “…throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”. God knew we would have these struggles, and it’s by His grace that He allows us to grow from His love, using everything He has provided for us despite living in a fallen world.

How to Condition & Detangle

The same God who is gracious enough to give us what we need in order to overcome is the same God who loves us enough to never give up on us during the journey. At the beginning of this post, I stated that a solution to matting was to “restore back to its intended state”. Well, keep in mind, God has always intended for us to be a reflection of Him. God has always intended for you to live a life of freedom, fulfillment, and love. So, how do we do the work and allow ourselves to be conditioned and detangled back to our intended state?

To condition means to have a significant influence on something or someone. So first, you must allow the Holy Spirit to condition (influence) you. Make a decision that you will no longer try to fill the void with anything but God and surrender every day to the power of the Holy Spirit. He will help you get to the root and find out where & why you feel the voids in your heart. And let me just say I’m an advocate for throwing some form of therapy in the mix, too. I 100% feel like the Holy Spirit led me to therapy while simultaneously ushering me into a deeper relationship with Him.

The next step is detangling. To detangle means to remove tangles or separate. So, after we allow ourselves to be conditioned by the Holy Spirit, we must detach from everything we once used to fill the voids— unhealthy habits, materialism, pleasurable distractions, worldly ambitions, and any other negative influences. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. And He never said it would be, but He did promise to always be with us. No matter how long you think it’s taking you to get it right or how poorly you think you’re doing, God promises to complete what He has started in us. Just keep going and maintain.

How to Maintain

As I mentioned earlier, doing the work regularly will prevent having to do the even harder work all over again after a period of neglect. So what does maintenance look like in this context? Relationship, relationship, relationship. I will ALWAYS say cultivate a relationship with God first and foremost. Talk to Him about everything… literally. Run to Him with your problems, tell Him how you’re feeling (good or bad), give Him praise for your victories, thank Him for His mercy, explain your struggles, ask Him why… all of it. He can handle it, and I promise you’ll see His overwhelming love shine through in the way He handles all of you. The love He deposits in you will empower habits like worship, reading the Bible, and obeying His voice because you now have a deeper desire to please Him from a place of love. The key is to make your relationship with Him a priority— Tend to it every day. Even if you happen to have a period of neglect and slip back into old habits… CONDITION, DETANGLE, MAINTAIN. It’s all about your willingness. The things you struggle with now will eventually take less of a tug to comb through. And guess what else hair starts to do when it’s detangled and maintained properly? GROW. The same principle applies to you and me. This is how we grow in God, and it’s such a beautiful revelation.

I hope this blessed you to read as much as it blessed me to write. Here are some scriptures to help us, no matter what part of the process you’re in:

• Hebrews 12:1 (Throw off the sin that entangles you)

• Matthew 28:20 (He is with us always)

• Philippians 1:6 (He will complete what He started in you)

• Romans 12:2 (Be not conformed to this world)

• Romans 8:29 (God’s plan for us to be conformed to the image of Jesus)

• Hebrews 13:5 (God will never abandon you)

• Isaiah 41:10 (He will strengthen you and help you)

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