Hair, Hair, Beautiful Hair

The hair on our heads is a blessing folks. Maybe you don't see it that way, but if you come close to losing it all you will be grateful for what you have. Yesterday was one of those days I realized how blessed I am.

After work I was sitting innocently in our back yard on a blanket, trying to make some way on my monster paper. The sun was shinning and although my writing wasn't flowing too well, I couldn't complain about much. 

My mom had a BBQ planned for that evening. She had invited all the families she and my dad home/visit teach to come over, so it was going to be a pretty big affair. The missionaries were also coming over, so time was of the essence. (We can only have the missionaries in our home for dinner for an hour or so because their time is so precious.) My dad, the handy dandy BBQ master was running late. Well he wasn't running late, he is never late, but Devin's tennis match had gone longer than expected and he really wanted to stay and watch the last bit of my brothers game. He called me up and asked if I could help get the food started. As a break from writing my paper I said I would help, but that he would have to instruct me because I haven't as much started a BBQ up before.

So my dad assures me that he will walk me through, step by step, and that he is grateful for my help.

Here are the steps he walked me through.

Step 1: Find matches

Step 2: Turn on gas tank thing under the BBQ

Step 3: Turn nobs on BBQ a quarter turn to the left. Yep, turn them all on he says. 

Step 4: Light match and drop it in

Of course I didn't want to start a fire so I lit the match and carefully looked over the grill to make sure it was dropped in safely. In .2 seconds a huge flame exploded out of the BBQ and literally engulfed me. Of course my natural reaction was to jump back and turn my face away. This was the scariest moment of my life thus far. I felt my head and all I felt was charred pieces of something, definitely not my hair. In fear of knowing what the damage was I hesitantly ran inside. It was the scariest thing, turning the corner and looking in the mirror. I didn't know what to expect. The smell was wretched and hair was falling out of my head. I didn't know how much was going to come out. I called Matt in hysterics and he assured me he was close to being home and that it would be okay. I then started to investigate and found out the damage really was not as bad as I thought. Luckily I pulled my hair back in a pony tail when I got home from work and my bangs were pinned back from earlier in the day. The only thing that took the fire was the fringe of my hair around my face. If my hair was not in a pony tail, I literally would have lost at least half of my hair. I would be bald today. Another blessing, my eye lashes were not impacted at all. My eyebrows were definitely burned, but I still have some eyebrows. It just looks like I sort of took a razor to them. 

All in all, I am one blessed girl. Yes I have some tiny, funny looking hairs near my face, but I still have a face. I also still have the vast majority of my hair. Another blessing? My dad came home as soon as he heard what happened, but right in front of him was a huge wreck on the road. My Dad could have been in that had I not helped him and asked him to just come start the food himself. I'll take a little burnt hair any day if that means my Dad will be kept safe. 

I am so grateful that I was protected from what could have been a huge life-altering event. I am grateful Matt and I had family prayer that morning to protect us from harms way. I, as well as my dad, was certainly protected.