The Fruit of Our Words
It’s been more than two years since I got my “Rosemary haircut” at a mall in Chattanooga. It was a brave thing I did that night — walking into an unknown hair salon in an out-of-town mall and asking for a haircut. The cut was actually okay, but the experience left me feeling not as perky as when I went in.
I’ll call the stylist Brandie. I am trying to remember, did Brandie smile a single time the whole time I was in that chair? Maybe once . . . and that’s a big maybe. I told Brandie the current issues I had been having with my hair and how much I wanted her to cut–half an  inch. When she shampooed my hair, she used phrases like “gray hair has a mind of its own” and “as we age.” While she snipped (more than half an inch), she frowned.
When Brandie was almost finished, she said (this is as close a quote as I can remember), “I call this my Rosemary cut. I have a customer, Rosemary. We worked for two years to get this cut. It’s one she can work with. I can do anything, but she can’t and with this she can [style her hair at home] herself.”
I paid my bill (more than twice what I had been used to paying) and walked out of the shop feeling blue. I liked my cut, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to share it with Rosemary who took two years to get a cut she could do herself. I wasn’t thrilled with what Brandie had said about my problem gray hair that “had a mind of its own” and the beauty issues we encounter “as we age.”
Fast forward to this winter. After loving the job my niece has been doing with my hair for a long time now, I decided to look for a local stylist for the times when my niece and I just can’t make our schedules mesh. She lives two and a half hours away and sometimes we just can’t work out a time that works for both of us from that distance.
I’ll call my new stylist Jenny. Jenny is very sweet. She compliments my clothes. She plays with my hair (isn’t it fun to see a stylist who loves her job do that?). She tells me I have great hair and she compliments the color. When she found out my age, she acted shocked in a “Really? You certainly don’t look that old” sort of way.
So, what’s the difference here? I’ve got the same hair — only grayer. I’m still older than both Brandie and Jenny — only in two and a half years I’ve gotten even older.
Every day with every person we meet we have the opportunity to be a Brandie or a Jenny. We can leave people feeling uplifted or we can leave them feeling let down. Yesterday I asked our ladies Bible class for examples of people who had encouraged them. Sue said, “Well . . . teachers.” A retired English teacher herself, she said that encouraging is one thing teachers are supposed to do.
What a wonderful opportunity you have to be your children’s teacher/encourager.
A man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his words,
And the deeds of a man’s hands will return to him.
Proverbs 12:14
Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
Proverbs 16:24
Therefore encourage one another and build up one another,
just as you also are doing.
1 Thessalonians 5:11
Like apples of gold in settings of silver
Is a word spoken in right circumstances.
Proverbs 25:11
