Read Part 1 of this article here.

I hadn’t been to get my hair cut, in an actual shop, for several years. I’ve been so accustomed to grabbing the electric razor and buzzing my head with a number two extension that I really haven’t felt the need to get it cut professionally. Cutting your own hair is simple and cost effective but it doesn’t allow for much versatility.

I spent several minutes explaining to the hairstylist exactly what I’ve been used to, that I wanted something new, and that it must counteract my baldingness. She caught right on and, in one sentence, condensed my lengthy discourse. “She’s good,” I thought to myself. And she was. She started cutting and trimming and within a few minutes I could start to see that there was light at the end of this partially bald-headed, thirty-year-old’s tunnel. I smiled.

She asked me what I did for a living. I told her that I publish a local magazine. She asked me what the magazine was about. I said, “Jesus.” She seemed a bit puzzled so I began to explain to her a bit about Rethink and how we’re not a traditional Christian publication. We talk about Jesus and how we really can’t do anything without him. We also talk about how grace and hope should invade everything we do and if we can’t handle situations without love and humility, then we shouldn’t be involved in those situations. “We’re a Christian publication,” I said, “but we don’t really like Christian publications.”

I thought she was going to think I was crazy – which I probably am but that’s off topic. But I could tell that she was starting to understand where I was coming from and that she liked the idea. That was most evident when she said, “Hey, I like that idea.”

I smiled, again. And then she began to open up.

She was involved with church from early on in her life. After getting mixed up with some radicals – a bunch of young people who were fired up in their relationship with Jesus – as a young teenager, she left her parent’s traditional church and started to attend her friend’s non-denominational – but heavily Pentecostal (her emphasis not mine) – church just down the street. The wild folks.

She loved it, made a ton of friends (a few of whom I would soon find out that are also friends of mine), and she eventually found herself being thrust into a leadership position.

Everything was going great for her. Until she got pregnant.

I could tell in her voice that the hairstylist was still affected by the actions of those in the church; those she felt a connection with and a place where she felt a sense of belonging. She fell in love with the church but the church, when she needed it most, didn’t love her back.

She began to explain to me the events that started to unfold after her youth pastor found out about her pregnancy with an older man. Her pastor immediately withdrew her from her leadership position as it wasn’t a good representation to the other students in the ministry. I can understand that and I probably would’ve done the same thing. But instead of offering her any form of assistance or a welcoming environment or, heck, even a hug, the church seemed to turn its back on her and eventually she was asked to leave.

A single, soon-to-be-teenage mother was asked to leave the church. She was asked to leave the one place where an acceptance for her should have been overflowing with abundance; a place where she could be loved regardless of the choices she had made. Sin is inexcusable but the sinner is welcomed. This church, however, wanted nothing to do with her.

I bite my tongue.

If it hadn’t been for the way she was treated several years ago, she told me she never would’ve left the church – not just that church but the church in general. Instead she began to seek out new arenas in which she could fill her God-shaped hole. She would explore with things like Buddhism and sadomasochism. She would move from man to man and religion to religion, tying to fill this void, yet, on the inside, she couldn’t shake that experience with the Creator. I could tell it in her voice.

I could see that she wanted that relationship once again but she didn’t want the hurt and the pain caused by individuals within the church who cared more about their agenda than the agenda of Christ.

As I sat in the barber chair, absorbing her words, my heart broke for this lady. And, at the same time, my frustration for the church seemed to grow. I know that any group made up of individuals will have its flaws. We are all sinners in need of a Savior. I get that. I’m just as much at fault. But all too often stories like this one seep through our large cracks. It’s time, in my opinion, to patch up the holes as best as possible and recognize that situations like these just can’t happen.

She finished up working on my hair – a fine job she did, I might add – and I walked up to the counter to pay. I didn’t have much else to say. I wanted to apologize for how crappy we, the church, have treated her. So I left her with these last words (and I quote):

“People suck. Please don’t let people who suck get in the way of you and Jesus.”

That was the best I had. Then I walked out.