Hair Doesn't Tell The Full Story

Technology can be a wonderful thing. Not long ago, for example, my wireless phone rang with a call forwarded from our home phone as we were leaving church. Area Code 318 flashed at me, but the number was unfamiliar. Then a strong, deep voice tinged with a bit of Southern drawl projected an intimate familiarity. I had heard it many times before, but probably not in 15 to 20 years.

"This is Jimmy Yocum," the voice announced, as if we had just spoken yesterday. "A preacher friend is stranded in Conway and may need some help. Can he call you? " I haltingly agreed, not knowing what "help" might entail.

Years ago, "Brother Jimmy" was pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Point, Louisiana. We made trips to Point in those days to visit our friend and former neighbor Linda Hammett and her daughters Kelly and Kim. Linda had moved to Point to be near her parents, Amos and Merle Antley. All went to Brother Jimmy's church.

Though foreigners of sorts, the church welcomed us, and we enjoyed both Brother Jimmy's preaching and friendship. But travels gradually subsided, and Brother Jimmy and Flornece eventually moved to Bastrop, Louisiana.

After Brother Jimmy's surprise noontime call, we heard nothing else--until we were headed to church that evening. Another forwarded call to the wireless phone, another strong, deep voice. This one belonged to the stranded preacher friend, Don Wright. He, wife Nancy and son Justin had been camping all day at Wal-Mart in a vain attempt to locate someone to lay hands on their crippled van. But Memorial Day weekend had sucked up all mechanics.

Mary and I ferried the tired family 90 minutes down to Sheridan, where Nancy's brother lives. On the way, they cheerfully shared how the ultimate breakdown was the last in a series of mishaps that had foiled their vacation plans. But instead of bitterness, they extolled God's providential hand in preventing the engine's final gasp deep in the Ozark Mountains.

For years, Mary and I have marveled at our uncanny ability--dare I call it a skill?--to identify preachers by the way they wear their hair. Without revealing our little secret, a certain look has always been a dead giveaway. But now it's time, perhaps, for a different sort of "preacher profiling."

In considering these two men, their strong, confident voices only hint at their occupations. More significant, both have endured hardship, laboring bivocationally for decades to fulfill their primary calling--preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Suddenly being cast together with friends new and old for those few moments rekindled a spark of faith. There really are people who willingly serve God and others without having personal profit as their motive. But you can't pick them out of the lineup by the way they wear their hair. How they wear life is closer to the truth--and far more revealing.

Copyright 2002 James McAlister

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