Hairbrush experience at the airport

Jump to Comments

I once wrote a blog about feeling a little bit like noah when God told him to build an ark to prepare for the flood. Everybody thought he was a lunatic, especially because of the size of the thing – not to mention the fact that it had never rained, ever.

On another note, my heroine whom I’ve never met but with whom I am a little bit obsessed and absolutely convinced I would stalk if she lived within qick driving distance is Beth Moore. She gets to feel like noah all the time, and I just got an email about one of these times. This is a true story, and I only hope that if He ever chooses me for something like this He gives me the guts to get out of my chair!

HAIRBRUSH EXPERIENCE OF BETH MOORE AT THE AIRPORT

For those of you who do not know Beth Moore, she is an outstanding Bible teacher, writer of Bible studies, and is a married mother of two daughters. This is one of her experiences:

  April 20, 2005, at the Airport in Knoxville , waiting to board
  the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon
  what I was doing. I’d had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I
  say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have
  the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing
  some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the
  Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least
   of which is your ego.
  I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight.
  Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in
  clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds
  heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his
  shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt.
  His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones.

  The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray
  hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back.
  His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on
  an old man.

  I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort
  burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might
  have been, I found myself wondering if I’d just had a Howard
  Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that he was dead. So this
man in the airport…an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us
somewhere? There I sat; trying to concentrate on the Word to
keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served
on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while, my
heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for  him.

  Let’s admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true
  concern and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this
  bizarre-looking old man. I had walked with God long enough to
  see the handwriting on the wall. I’ve learned that when I begin
  to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural
  feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be
  embarrassing.

  I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working
  on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. ‘Oh,
  no, God, please, no.’ I looked up at the ceiling as if I could
  stare through it into heaven and said, ‘Don’t make me
  witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I’ll do
  anything. Put me on the same plane, but don’t make me get up
  here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience
  . Please, Lord!’

  There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness,
  ‘Please don’t make me witness to this man. Not now.
  I’ll do it on the plane.’
  Then I heard it… ‘I don’t want you to witness to him. I want
  you to brush his hair.’

  The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my
  thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his
  hair?
  No-brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said,
  ‘God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to
  witness to this man. I’m on this Lord. I’m your girl! You’ve
  never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What
  difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not
  redeemed? I am going to witness to this man.’

  Again as clearly as I’ve ever heard an audible word, God
  seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind.
  ‘That is not what I said, Beth. I don’t want you to witness to
  him. I want you to go brush his hair.’

  I looked up at God and quipped, ‘I don’t have a hairbrush. It’s
  in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his
  hair without a hairbrush?’ God was so insistent that I almost
  involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came
  to me from God’s word: ‘I will thoroughly furnish you unto all
  good works.’ (2 Timothy 3:17)

  I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one
  myself.  Even as I retell this story, my pulse quickens and I feel
those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man and asked
as demurely as possible, ‘Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing
your hair?’ He looked back at me and said, ‘What did you say?’

 ’May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?’

  To which he responded in volume ten, ‘Little lady, if you
  expect me to hear you, you’re going to have to talk louder than
  that.’ At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out,
  ‘SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?’

  At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was
  the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr.
  Longlocks.

  Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched
  him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, ‘If
  you really want to.’

  Are you kidding? Of course I didn’t want to. But God didn’t seem
  interested in my personal preference right about then. He
  pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, ‘Yes, sir, I
  would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don’t have a
  hairbrush.’

  ‘I have one in my bag, ‘ he responded.

  I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my
  hands and knees and unzipped the stranger’s old carry-on,
  hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started
  brushing the old man’s hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was
  tangled and matted. I don’t do many things well, but must admit
   I’ve had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls.

  Like I’d done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a
  condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands,
  remembering to take my time not to pull.

  A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that
  old man’s hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared.
  There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me.
  I brushed and I  brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of
   that hair. I know this sounds so strange, but I’ve never felt that kind of
  love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I – for
  that few minutes – felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had
  overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and was
 making Himself at home for a short while.

   The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God’s.
   His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant’s. I slipped the brush back
  in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees,
 put my hands on his knees and said, ‘Sir, do you know my Jesus?’

  He said, ‘Yes, I do.’

   Well, that figures, I thought. He explained, ‘I’ve known Him since I married my
   bride. She wouldn’t marry me until I got to know the Savior.’ He said, ‘You see,
   the problem is, I haven’t seen my bride in months.  I’ve had open-heart surgery,
  and she’s been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what
 a mess I must be for my bride.’

   Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we’re
   completely unaware of the significance. This,  on the other hand, was one of those
   rare encounters when I knew  God had intervened in details only He could have known.

   It was a God moment, and I’ll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were
   not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I’d acted earlier and would have
  been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.
   I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess
   returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, ‘That old man’s
   sitting on  the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?’

   I said, ‘Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!’ And we got to share.

  I learned something about God that day. He knows if you’re
  exhausted, you’re hungry, you’re serving in the wrong place or
  it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He
  knows if you’re hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you’re
  sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you
  just need your hair brushed.

  He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

  I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how
  many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the
  way. . . all because I didn’t want people to think I was strange.

  God didn’t send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

   John 1:14 ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We Have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’

  Life shouldn’t be a journey to the grave with the intention of
  arriving; safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but
  rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn
  out, and loudly shouting, ‘Wow! What a ride! Thank You, Lord!’

  Be Blessed!

7 Comments

Filed under Miscellaneous