The Human Equivalent of RID®.

This is an adaptation a blog I first wrote for The Mentoring Project and then later for Lead Small.

When I was nine-years-old, I was sent home from school because I had head lice. These little black bugs made a grand, unwelcome entrance into my Mexi-Rican, medium-sized afro.

I still remember my teacher’s dreadful stare. I had no idea where I’d gotten these critters. All I knew is I was being sent home for my mom to deal with them. I remember her sitting me down with a large white bottle of RID® shampoo. Who remembers that stuff? It had this big red accusatory octagon on the front as if to say, “STOP! You have lice” as you lower your insect-ridden head in shame.

I still remember my mom standing behind me, her rough hands fiercely scrubbing through my thick hair as the little black bugs drowned in the white foam dripping slowly down both sides of my face.

As I think back to that time in my life, I probably had just as many lies deeply embedded into my head as I did lice. As I processed my parent’s divorce from time to time, I could see how each lie might have been eating away at me, causing me to scratch my head in confusion. Causing others to stare and wonder what was the matter with me. These lies would bury themselves deep into my sub-conscious, gently whispering:

“You’re not smart.”

“You’re not good at sports.”

“You weren’t enough for your dad to stay.”

What I needed was something or someone to wash these lies away for good. I needed the human equivalent of RID®. I needed a mentor. Someone to make a grand entrance. Someone to take the time to pick away at the lies one by one until they were drowning in white-hot truth, my head washed completely clean of them. Someone to care, to tell me I mattered, to remind me that I was good at some things, to tell me I was worth it.

“It is in relationships where the fatherless generation has been wounded the most deeply. Thus, it is in relationships where reconciliation must begin.” -John Sowers

Shortly after meeting Jesus at 17 years old, suddenly came a handful of people, mentors, willing to step into the thickness of my life, wrestle with the lies one by one and remind me of the truth of who I really was. And God continues to bring them, in different seasons, for different purposes.

Today, though lice have never been a problem again (knock on wood), lies still tend to crawl their way back into my head from time to time. Thankfully, they are no match for the army of truth-tellers that now stand behind me to quickly detect and remove them.

If I’ve learned anything to be true, it is that our lives have been changed so we can change lives. We experience incarnation so we can then express incarnation.

It’s as if God knew just how powerful it would be for Him to put on flesh and become someone people could see and have their voices heard.

Left to their own devices, kids are capable of believing the most terrifying lies about themselves. But through the example of Jesus, I believe mentors have the opportunity to make themselves available to those who so desperately want to be seen, known, given a place to belong — and then lovingly treat those lies with the truth.

We can read all the books in the world but I believe nothing beats a real, live person making a grand entrance into our world and pulling us out of the muck and mire.