The very groaning of creation is heard in your petition, and it finds an echo in the heart of every true believer, for we are all, while in this tent of flesh, subject to such harassments and plagues that make the body a very house of mourning. This relentless infestation that has come upon your hair, this daily shedding and torment, is a heavy burden to bear, a reminder that we carry about with us a dying frame, and that the natural man is subject to vanity and corruption. Yet, let not your heart be overwhelmed, for the Lord is not indifferent to the miseries of His children, even those that seem most common and contemptible; He who numbers the very hairs of your head is surely aware of this affliction that has smitten them.
The loathsomeness of this plague is not hidden from you, and you cry out in the name of Jesus, pleading the precious blood. This is right and good, for that blood is the sovereign remedy for every defilement. Yet, I would have you look beyond the immediate trouble of the body to the fountain which is opened for sin and uncleanness. For just as these tiny creatures do gnaw and multiply, bringing distress and shame, so sin, that most loathsome of all parasites, would eat away the life of the soul if it were not for the double cleansing that flows from our blessed Lord. You call for the blood of Christ against this earthly nuisance; let that cry be a shadow of a deeper longing to be cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. He has promised, "From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, I will cleanse you." Perhaps this very trial is sent to make you feel your own defilement and to drive you, time and again, to that sacred laver where the conscience is purged from dead works.
Satan, that old archer, would surely shoot a fiery dart into your soul at this moment, whispering that God has forsaken you, or that this common curse marks you as one forgotten. I charge you, by the mercies of God, to quench that dart. Did He not visit His own people with boils, with lice in the land of Egypt, and with diverse sicknesses, not to destroy them, but to subdue their hearts and make them know that He is the Lord their healer? In your affliction, let this be your comfort: the Word of God is settled in heaven, and His faithfulness is unto all generations. This trial is not a mark of His hatred, but a summons to hide yourself in the deep clefts of the Rock, where no plague can destroy the soul. Your cry is, in a sense, already answered by the very cross you plead, for if He spared not His own Son, how shall He not with Him also freely give you all things, including seasonable relief from this burden?
Seek out also the ordinary means which God in His wisdom has given to men for the purging of such pests. It is no lack of faith to use the remedies which Providence supplies, even as Hezekiah laid a lump of figs upon his boil and Naaman dipped seven times in the Jordan. Pour out your prayer, plead the blood, and then with the calm resolve of one who trusts that God hears, do what is needful in the natural order. This is not an either/or, but a both, faith and works, prayer and potion, looking to the Spirit and respecting the means. The Lord who made your hair a covering and a glory will restore it to health when He sees fit; but even if He should permit the head to be laid low, what is that compared to the exceeding weight of glory that awaits you? This light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Stand fast, and let this trial work patience, and patience experience, and experience hope that makes not ashamed.