I was born and raised Pentecostal and God blessed me with a wonderful family. Many of my extended family are great men of God and have their own churches. I recieve the Holy Ghost when I was 8 years old and I lived life the best as I could being such a little kid. I have alwasy been sensitive to the spirit and I was always one of the ones crying and worshiping when at church. I loved God with all my heart and I wanted to do his will, but I never seemed to let myself go. I didn't really have any problems with no makeup and skirts, but my only down fall was my hair.
God blessed me with a bundle of hair from the day I was born, when I was three years old, my hair was already down to waist. I hated it! Every inch of it and I did everything to get rid of it. I cut it numerous times and every time I would say sorry about it, but nothing ever changed in my heart. My Youth Pastor would talk to my about it, my Pastor would preach about it from the pulpit, I would read books, listen to tapes, read the Bible, but nothing seemed to hit me. I knew that if something was going to change God was going to have to show me himself that it was wrong, or show me that it was my glory.
I was about to the point where I was just going to give up on the whole hair issue b/c it seemed like no matter what I did nothing seemed to change. That was until I went to IL District Ladies Retreat in 2003. This is when my life was changed forever. I was 19 years old and I was sitting in the room full of hundreds of ladies. Sis. Lumpkin was our main speaker and she was wonderful. The last session of the day was her's and to my surprise she said she wanted to talk to us about hair. I do have to say, I honestly thought it was going to be another "Your hair is your glory b/c the Bible says so" sermons; but to my surprise it wasn't. She said she was going to talk to us that day as if we were sitting in on a conversation between her and her daughter.
She brought her daughter to the platform and stood right beside her. She began talking to her and telling her her story behind hair. The whole time she was talking, she had her pain pinned up on her head. She began telling a story about a time that she was going to the doctor a lot and he would always wear her hair up. Her doc. kept asking her if she would take her hair down and she would always give excuses of having to leave or not having enough time. One day she went into the office and her doctor asked her to please take her hair down...she couldn't figure out why she wanted her to, but she said fine..I'll do it.
As she was telling the story of how she took out her pins and un wound her hair, she started doing this on the platform. When she took the final pin out of her hair and let in un wind, it was like you could feel a wind hit you in the face. The whole place went wild...I have never felt the power of God so strong in my life. I couldn't contain myself. I stood up, threw my hands in the air and prayed like I have never done before. God showed himself to me. He showed me my Glory. He showed me how powerful it is, how awesome it is. She went on to tell us that it's not the length of our hair, but it's the power in it. She said that when people see your hair and comment on how beautiful it is, it's not because it's beautiful it's because they are feeling the power of God come out from it.
Someone please tell me this doctrine isn't being preached all over the UPC still today.
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I've gone and done it now! I'm on Facebook!!!