Gospel Love and Hair Lice

A friend called me up a few days ago.

I hadn't talked to her for quite a long time; I knew her from Bible study, but that was before marriage (not to speak of baby). She needed some help.

I'm struggling with hair lice, she said. And I don't know who can help me.


It sent me back about a decade, to a horrible time in college. I was sitting in the nurse's office, crying at the news that, yes, I had lice. It was a terrible feeling... itchy, ashamed, lonely, helpless.

Who would help me? It's one thing to room with a buddy and ask to borrow her car or something, but deal with this? No way.

It was this time of year--about a week before Easter. I pulled my jacket on and walked through a chilling breeze across the street and down the road to Fuddruckers. I ate chicken wild rice soup in a bread bowl. Hardly enjoyed it, feeling wretched.

On the way back, I called my parents. I couldn't quite keep my voice from breaking as I told them. I have lice.

They were 5 hours away in Iowa. My dad was busy with work, my mom at home, busy with keeping home home, like she did for my whole childhood.

And I didn't even have to ask them. 6 hours later, they were with me in Minneapolis, picking up the treatment from the drug store and checking into a hotel across the street from campus.

It was a horrible, nightmarish time, my mom picking through my hair, strand by strand, late, late into the night. I dozed a little, I suppose, until she finished the terrible task. The light in the hotel room cast a wan yellow gleam. I lay with my head in my mom's lap on a towel, my stomach clenched, hating the idea of living things crawling on my head, hating the imposition to my parents, hating the embarrassing confession I had to make to my roommates, hating the numb weariness that played games with my mind.

When it was all over, we all slept a few hours, and then they packed back up and headed home.

It was a brief episode, in the grand scheme of things. One more treatment a week later, when I was home for Easter. Then it was done. Just a memory.

But I can't think of a time when I have felt more acutely the kind of gospel love that Jesus gave. So disgusting. So costly. So inconvenient. So ugly.

And a reaching-out love that didn't wait for me to make it worth her while, didn't complain at the nastiness of the task, didn't look for payback or recompense, willingly stepped into a problem not her own.


That was a decade ago, but I remember the sensations vividly. I've been a bit paranoid of an itchy scalp ever since.

And I had an opportunity, a chance to show gospel love myself.

She needed a haircut.

So, hair back in a bandana, rubber gloves on, I met her in the garage, armed with squirt bottle and scissors. It was a beautiful day, sun streaming down on us as I clipped and combed.

I'm no hairstylist. So it was a crowning grace of God that at the end, she thought it was kinda cute.

I stripped off the top layer of clothes, left my shoes on the front step, showered again, boiled the scissors, dumped the clothes and towels straight into the washer... and felt a strange joy to share in that kind of gospel love.

It's not really impressive, you know, when compared to the real source of gospel love.

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.--Isaiah 53:4-5

We are healed. And He is risen. Praise God, He is risen indeed!