While seated in the congregation, several years ago, listing to a Sunday sermon from my pastor, my child was having a difficult time concentrating. As I carried out my routine fatherly duties of attempting to keep my children focused on learning and not hampering other people’s worship my youngest child moved to a position in front of me. She quickly asked me to braid her hair and considering the alternative of pure utter disruption I gladly agreed.   

As we all grow older, we take on certain traits and characteristics which we have learned along the way. One such trait I was blessed to learn is the ability to French braid hair. Although many times, when speaking of my ability to others I’ve been faced with skepticism and a moderate amount of disbelief, I’ve enjoyed the time it allows with my bonding with my daughters. I remain thankful that a friend, I knew the second year I was in the Navy took it upon herself to teach me not only how to French braid but likewise how to braid correctly. Little did I know back then just how useful it would become.

          As any good parent would, given the opportunity to engage their children while keeping them from making a scene, I quickly positioned my daughter in front of me as we gazed forward, listening to the Pastor share his Godly wisdom. While I worked my magic with the strands of her shoulder length brown hair, I remained fixated on the words of the sermon. Spinning the portions of hair this way and the next that way, over sections of hair and some under, I quickly completed my task and must say it looked good.  With each braid perfectly in place, from a father’s point of view, I shifted my glance from the Pastor to my child and felt a momentary sense of pride over how great the braid turned out.

          As I held the lower portion of her hair, I realized that although I had truly completed the perfect trifecta of fatherhood, worshiping through the sermon while braiding my kid’s hair and better yet, I kept her occupied, I experienced a fast evolving “oh crud” moment.  What I had failed to recognize when my child asked me to braid her hair was, we had no band to keep the braid in place. I quickly glanced towards her sister to see if she had an extra band around her wrist and asked my child if she had one. As the clock seemed to slow considerably, I’m pretty sure the anxiety level rose to levels higher than they should have as I searched for any item, I could use to tie off the small locks of hair and preserve this fatherly masterpiece.

          It was then that I received the surprise I was not expecting. Out of nowhere and from multiple directions, the arms of several mothers and older daughters reached out towards me, each grasping a hair tie in their hand. Somewhat shocked, I gladly grasp one band and quietly thanked the kind lady who became the provider. What I had failed to observe was that while I was going about my business of listening to the sermon and doing my best to keep my child from disrupting the service, I in fact had become the focal point of several ladies within the congregation. My attempt to keep my child quiet had in fact drawn the attention of others and provided the comical relief they needed. Later, several of those ladies approached me and described how they were captivated by the fact that I knew how to French braid hair, you see I’m a burly, big guy which no one would believe I could interact in such a manner and secondly, that I would so openly be willing to engage my child in such a manner.

          As I thought about this encounter, I am reminded about just how often we do our best to accomplish tasks without realizing that the tools we require aren’t always within us. At times, our best of intentions leaves us in a position where we must be able to recognize the outreached hands of assistance and be willing to take hold, so our goals and dreams can be realized. Although we all would like to believe we can do it on our own, it is through a brotherhood and sisterhood, a community with outreached arms, that our true vision can become a reality.  Welcome the outreached hands, for we never know when our actions will not only help us but also become the means by which another finds contentment.