Interwoven, Yet Still Individual What a Dream About Braids Taught Me About Restoration

“And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:12 KJV

Some dreams don't give you the entire story.

They leave you with fragments.

A conversation.

A place.

A repeated image.

And sometimes one detail stays with you long enough that you realize it may have been the message all along.

For me, it was hair.

The Conversation

In one part of the dream, I was with my husband while he was speaking with his sister on the phone.

I could see him, but I couldn't see her.

I don't remember exactly what they were discussing, although I had the sense that the conversation may have concerned their mother.

There wasn't anything dramatic about the scene.

It was simply family communicating about family.

At first, I didn't understand why that moment remained with me.

Then the dream shifted.

I found myself in a hair salon.

The Salon

A woman who appeared to own the salon was styling someone's hair.

The person wasn't satisfied with how her hair looked, so the owner began correcting it.

Something needed to be adjusted.

Something needed to be redone.

I was also there getting my hair done.

The dream seemed to keep bringing my attention back to hair.

People were having their hair styled.

Hair was being repaired.

Hair was being redone.

And there were braids.

Individual braids.

But as I reflected on the dream afterward, I began thinking about what actually happens when hair is braided.

Before There Is a Braid, There Are Strands

A braid begins with separation.

Individual strands.

Each strand has its own place.

Then the process begins.

One crosses another.

Another moves through.

The strands repeatedly intersect until something begins taking shape.

They don't disappear.

They don't lose their individual existence.

They become part of a pattern.

And perhaps that's what stayed with me.

Interwoven does not mean indistinguishable.

We can be deeply connected to other people while still remaining individual.

Family teaches us this perhaps more than anything else.

Marriage teaches it.

Motherhood teaches it.

Friendship teaches it.

Community teaches it.

Our lives cross.

Our experiences overlap.

Our decisions affect one another.

We love people.

We worry about people.

We pray for people.

We sometimes carry responsibilities together.

But being connected to someone does not mean becoming responsible for everything that belongs to them.

Connection Is Not Ownership

This is where the braiding imagery became powerful for me.

Imagine trying to make one strand responsible for holding the entire braid together.

It can't.

Every strand has its place.

Every strand participates.

Every strand moves when it is supposed to move.

The beauty comes from relationship and order.

Maybe some of us have confused love with carrying.

We believe that because we love someone, we have to fix them.

Because we're connected, we have to rescue them.

Because we're family, we have to absorb whatever happens.

Because someone else isn't doing their part, we have to compensate indefinitely.

But healthy connection doesn't require the disappearance of individual responsibility.

You can be interwoven with someone and still say:

This part belongs to me.

That part belongs to you.

Sometimes the Pattern Needs Adjusting

Then I remembered the woman whose hair wasn't right.

Something about the finished result needed correction.

The salon owner stepped in.

She didn't throw everything away.

She worked with what was already there.

That feels like restoration.

Restoration isn't always destruction followed by replacement.

Sometimes restoration is adjustment.

Sometimes a boundary needs adjusting.

Sometimes an expectation needs adjusting.

Sometimes the amount of responsibility we're carrying needs adjusting.

Sometimes the way we've been participating in a relationship needs to change.

And sometimes what once worked simply doesn't fit the season we're in anymore.

The beautiful thing about the salon imagery is that the person receiving the correction didn't have to see everything.

The stylist could see what she couldn't.

God Sees the Whole Head

That brought me to Proverbs 3:5:

"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

Proverbs 3:5 KJV

When you're sitting in a salon chair, you can't see everything happening behind your head.

You may see pieces in the mirror.

You may feel someone separating sections.

You may feel tension as strands are pulled together.

But you cannot fully see what is being created until the work progresses.

Life can feel that way.

Sometimes I can see one strand.

One relationship.

One problem.

One disappointment.

One unanswered question.

One situation that doesn't make sense.

And because that is the strand directly in front of me, I can mistakenly believe it is the whole picture.

But God sees the entire head.

He sees where one strand begins.

He sees where another crosses it.

He sees what needs to remain separate.

He sees what needs to come together.

He sees what needs to be loosened.

And He sees what needs to be redone.

I Wasn't the Stylist

There is one more part of this dream that may be the most important.

I was getting my hair done too.

I wasn't standing behind everyone's chair.

I wasn't carrying the comb.

I wasn't running the salon.

I was receiving care.

That image speaks deeply to restoration.

There are seasons when we become so accustomed to helping, managing, organizing, supporting, correcting and carrying that we forget we are allowed to sit down too.

We become the person everyone calls.

The person who figures things out.

The person who notices what isn't working.

The person who fills whatever space someone else leaves empty.

Eventually, you can become so busy tending to everyone else's strands that you forget you have hair of your own.

Maybe Spirit was reminding me:

Sit in the chair.

Let yourself be tended to.

Let your own peace receive attention.

Let your own household receive attention.

Let your own boundaries be examined.

Let your own covering be restored.

Interwoven, Yet Still Individual

Perhaps that is what the braids ultimately represented to me.

Not entanglement.

Not dysfunction.

Interconnection.

We were never meant to live without connection.

But connection was never supposed to erase identity, boundaries or responsibility.

A braid is beautiful precisely because individual strands participate without ceasing to be strands.

And maybe relationships work best the same way.

I can love you without becoming you.

I can support you without carrying everything for you.

I can pray for you without controlling your journey.

I can recognize that our lives are interwoven while understanding that some things still belong to you and some things belong to me.

And when I don't understand what God is doing with all these individual strands, perhaps I don't need to.

I can sit in the chair.

I can trust the process.

I can allow what needs correcting to be corrected.

And I can remember:

I may only see the strands.

God sees what they are becoming.

A Reflection for You

Where in your life have you confused being connected with being responsible?

Is there a strand you've been carrying that belongs in someone else's hands?

Or perhaps this is your season to stop standing behind everyone else's chair.

Sit down.

Receive.

Be restored.

And trust God with the pattern you cannot yet see.

Holistic Healing Works

Restoration isn't always about separating the strands. Sometimes it's learning how to remain yourself while being beautifully connected.