24 Brethren, let each one remain with God in that state in which he was called. ~ 1 Corinthians 7:24 (NKJV)
By Bro. John L. Cash, “Country Preacher Dad”
You’ve probably noticed from my photos that I am bald. I should have known that baldness was on its way for me because my father was bald, and there are a great number of bald men in my family. But I have to confess that it was shocking when, in my late twenties, I started to lose my hair. I think it’s because, up until that point, everybody was always telling me I had too much hair and needed to get a haircut.
But being bald doesn’t bother me at all. It isn’t one bit painful. I’m just thankful I don’t have carbuncles on my head. Now that would be a problem.
Sometimes being bald even has its advantages. On Wednesday nights we have prayer meeting at six-thirty. Sometimes I take a shower at six o’clock and arrive next door at the church ready to preach at six-fifteen. You can do that when you’re bald. It takes no time to wash your hair because you don’t have any. You only have slightly more face to wash.
You can scrub the top of your head with a bar of Dial soap, and when you get out of the shower you feel really clean. There’s even something in the Bible about this: “”As for the man whose hair has fallen from his head, he is bald, but he is clean.” Leviticus 13:40 (NKJV) That’s a great verse. They should put it on a Sunday School card or something.
I don’t understand bald guys who try to hide the fact that they’re bald. Everybody can spot when a man grows his hair three-feet-long on the side and combs it over the top of his head. There’s not enough hairspray in the world to keep that comb-over from flipping up like a cigar-box-lid when it’s hit by an April breeze. And in my book, hair-pieces are always a mistake. When’s the last time you got in the car after a public gathering and said, “Hey, did you see that man’s toupee?? Didn’t it look FANTASTIC !!??” (Said no one — ever.)
When I see a complicated comb-over or a toupee that looks like doghair-and-molasses, it makes me want to have a chat with the fellow who’s sporting it. I would just love to say, “Look. You’re bald. Everybody knows it. You can’t disguise it. And it’s no big deal. So just be bald.”
This principle is important to me because it’s the conclusion to a life lesson I have spent a lot of time learning. Something I’ve discovered is that the folks who loved me when I had a head full of hair still love me just as much now. And the folks who don’t care for me now would not like me one bit better if I had a beautiful head of hair. That’s just the way life is.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he has quite a lot to say about being content to remain in the state in which God has placed us. So let’s all try to accept ourselves and our situations a little more this week. And let’s stress a little less over external things, and instead think about things we can do in the service of God and others.
The interior of your heart is a lot more important than the exterior of your head.
Dr. John L. Cash is the “Country Preacher Dad.” He was raised in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and has spent the last 27 years being a country preacher in the piney woods five miles south of the little town of Hickory, Mississippi. (On week days has a desk-job at a public school and teaches Latin on closed-circuit-television.) He and his lovely wife, Susan, live in the parsonage next door to the Antioch Christian Church (where the Preacher is usually wearing a hat as a “hair substitute” to protect his head from the elements ). The Cashes have two sons, Spencer (age 21), and Seth (age 18), who live in the parsonage, too, except when they are away at college. He would love to hear from you in an email sent to countrypreacherdad@gaggle.net.
