Hair Whorl

“Your hair is backwards,” the barber declared. While visiting my in-laws, I stopped in a barber shop near their house. I had never considered getting a haircut in their town, had never met the barber, and felt slightly mystified by what he was trying to tell me. “I mean, your part is on the wrong side based on your hair whorl,” he continued. “The hair on your head falls a certain way naturally, and if you try to comb your hair in the opposite direction, it sticks up, especially right after you get a haircut.”

This all caught me by surprise. Nobody ever told me about this mysterious hair whorl thing or suggested that my hair was backwards. No barber in my entire life had questioned the way I parted my hair. No one told me there might be a better way to do things. After 38 years, I just figured crazy hair, all akimbo on top, was my lot in life. But here was this random, unknown barber telling me differently; telling me “Yes, you can do something to improve your hair.”

After agreeing to let the barber cut my hair with the part on the other side of my head, I walked out of a barber shop, and for the first time in my life, my hair laid . . . flat. And I left happy, as if the barber had revealed a secret to me. But how would I have known or experienced the wonder of flat hair if the barber had not spoken up and called it to my attention?

And how can anyone know about Jesus unless we tell them? “How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14) People everywhere have bigger problems than bad hair days, but how will they know that Jesus offers a better way of doing things unless we tell them?