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 up 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 straight 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 leap into my
throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness
to the man or brush his hair? No-brainier. 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. Long Locks. 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 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 knee 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!’
