Several years ago, our eldest, who is now 11, heard about giving hair to cancer patients through her Sunday School at church. On the Locks of Love website, she saw pictures of bald women and girls, looked at her full hair, and said, “I’d like to donate my hair.” Because she was still under 10, we wanted to make sure she knew what giving up her hair would mean. She didn’t care. Unfortunately, her hair at the time was not long enough – they ask for 10 inches or more – and because we were in the middle of our move to Canada, she was unable to follow through on her wish. A few days ago she went with her mother to finally get her hair cut to donate it for cancer.
She and her mother went to a salon to get it done while her younger sisters and I waited in a book store. I was looking through Odyssey, by Homer, a book she requested for me to find for her to read, when a young woman rushed over to me and said, “hi!” It took me a few seconds to realize this young lady was my 11 year old daughter! The hair cut had transformed a little girl into a beautiful young lady. It wasn’t just her physical appearance that had changed.
Somehow the hair cut had transformed her aura to bring out the beauty and the grace that we had always seen in her. It was a simple hair cut that took 11 inches off of her long full mane, but the meaning behind that cut had some how shown through her radiant face. I couldn’t help myself but to embrace her and kiss her with pride.
As parents, we hope and pray that we are doing our best to instill in our children good moral values in an increasingly complicated world with very little or no absolutes. It often seems one person’s opinion of what is “right” is just as valid as what has been thought to be “right” for eons. Therefore, I feel like I’m failing as a father almost every day. But when an eleven year old remembers and carries out a decision that she made several years ago to give her precious hair to people who are suffering, it helps us to have hope that what we’ve been teaching them is making a difference. We are thankful for the teachings of Jesus – to love our neighbors as ourselves – that we can impart on our children. We are also thankful for the Holy Spirit, for working in our children to follow Jesus with their whole heart. And we are thankful for the local churches that we have attended, that follow the teachings of the Bible, for instilling the principles of what it means to be Christians to our kids.
To God be the glory!
AKorDian 