This title alone makes me laugh. As you can imagine, there’s a story coming. One of the cool ways that God reveals things to me are through everyday life scenarios. The most recent mini-revelation came last week on Valentine’s Day when I was helping my girls get ready to go out for a date night with their Dad and me.
Nowadays, I feel like we never do anything fun so having an opportunity to get dressed up, and do our hair is a BIG DEAL for this house of three girls. Well, maybe it’s more fun for me, but the girls play along. As we were getting ready, I asked them if they would like me to blow dry their hair for them. Honestly, I don’t think they cared too much, but both decided to humor me and let me play hairdresser with them for a minute.
My oldest went first. She sat down on a stool in my bathroom while I got the hairdryer out. Before I go on, I’ll give you some backstory on this hairdryer. Four years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Because of my treatment I lost all of my hair, and it was a lengthy process of growing it back. When my hair started growing back it came in like little baby fuzz all over my head. And let me tell you, I “babied” those little beautiful, happy, follicle produced wonders.
As my hair started to grow I wanted to be careful not to fry the heck out of it once I started using a hairdryer. It was a while before I even got to that point, but while I waited I started researching hairdryers like a fiend. I was going to be ready as soon as those glorious hairs began to make their debut on my shiny dome.
I landed on the Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer because it didn’t use extreme heat and seemed like it would be gentle on my new growth. This dryer is an investment, so similar to how some new moms ask their husbands for “push gifts” when they have a baby, I asked my husband for a, “I survived cancer and I earned this stupidly expensive hair dryer, darnit” gift. And bless him, he got it for me.
Fast forward to the present. It’s now been three and a half years of using the above mentioned hairdryer, and here we are in my bathroom getting ready to dry my oldest daughter’s hair. As she’s sitting on the stool, I ask her to hold the dryer while I grab a round brush. I go over to the linen closet to grab the brush and as I turn around, Lauren says to me, “Mom, what’s this rubber thing?” I look over to see that she has pulled an oblong piece of rubber out of the center of the dryer that has been curled up in there since I opened the package three and a half years ago. To my horror, she is holding it in her hand.
Oh. My. Gosh. I immediately have an internal freakout, while semi-politely responding to her with, “Where did you get that?!?” She responds, “I pulled it out of the hairdryer.” Again, Oh. My. Gosh. Now I’m convinced that she has just forcibly removed the most important piece of equipment from this expensive hair dryer that has been my styling rockstar these past three and a half years. I immediately coil the piece of rubber up and try to stuff it back where it went praying that I can fix it.
From what I could tell it still worked so the crisis seems to be avoided, but I’m shook. Not my hairdryer, God. Anything but my hairdryer! (alright, I’m being a bit dramatic, but there’s a point coming).
After we get back from a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner and I get the girls tucked in bed, I can’t stop thinking about that crazy piece of rubber in the hairdryer. What in the world is it for? It’s been coiled in there since I opened the package, but why was it so easy for Lauren to take out? I decided to investigate a little further so I did what any modern day Sherlock Holmes would do, and I Googled it.
You’re not going to believe this. I’m almost too embarrassed to even go on. The darn rubber thing is a mat designed to be put on your bathroom countertop to rest your hairdryer ON so it doesn’t slide and fall on the ground. REALLY? So you’re telling me, this random rubber thing that has been INSIDE my dryer this entire time is not even supposed to be there? I’m dying.
Sheepishly, I removed the rubber mat, once again, and put it in the linen closet with all of the other random hair stuff I don’t use. The opening, A.K.A air intake, section of my hairdryer looked incredibly free and unobstructed for the first time in three and a half years.
Here’s the kicker. The next time I took a shower and dried my hair with the now unobstructed dryer it was as if I was using an entirely different machine! Seriously. It was the best blow-out I’ve ever given myself (and honestly, they’re not that great anyway), but I was BLOWN AWAY! (sorry, pun intended)
By simply removing this “thing” out of the machine it was suddenly able to perform the way it was intended to. It could finally live up to the potential that the designer and engineer of that device had intended. It was no longer inhibited by something that was never meant to be there in the first place.
Lightbulb moment. I felt God impress upon my heart, “Don’t you see? When you remove things from your life that I never intended to be there, you will be able to operate in the fullest capacity that I designed for you. But until you do that, your potential will be blocked.”
Whoa. So good.
It made me stop and think about those things that I need to remove from my life. Some are behaviors like impatience, controlling tendencies, fear, and approval addictions. Or, some of the things that may need to be eradicated could be physical things like toxic people, certain relationships, or habits. When we allow these things, that are not God’s will for us, or sinful behaviors, into our lives we inhibit His ability to work through us. He wants to blow His power, blessing, and light through us, but if that pathway is blocked those good gifts will not be as effective as He designed them to be.
What is the “rubber thing” in your hairdryer? What do you need to ask God to help you remove so that you can be an open vessel ready to receive his flow of transformation in your life? Sometimes the first step is simply identifying those things and then praying that God will help transform and renew your mind.
Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
Why would we want to stop or hinder God’s flow in our life? Sometimes it takes hard work, sacrifice, and major self reflection to fix those things that are blocking us. But I can’t imagine living my entire life knowing that I may be missing out on the fullness of His design for me simply because something is blocking the way.
Identify what is in your “hairdryer” and commit to removing it today!
