When you speak of the hair that falls, you mourn a thing which nature itself teaches is of little account. Yet consider how even this slight thing, when it rests upon the eyelids, serves the eye. Remove it, and the grace of the countenance is diminished. But what is the grace of a man? Is it the hair of the head, which the Apostle says is a dishonor if worn long, or is it the beauty of a soul adorned with charity and sober-mindedness? The loss you grieve is a trifle, yet the sorrow itself cuts deeper, for it shows where your treasure lies.
The widow who cast in two mites was not despised because her gift was small; she was received because she gave what she had. Some offered even hair for the building of the temple, and they were not rejected. But if they had possessed gold and brought only hair, they would have been accursed. You bring before the Lord your distress and your thinning hair, a thing many would count worthless. Yet if this is the affliction you carry, and you offer it to Him with a humble heart, He who accepted the widow’s farthings will not scorn your prayer. He looks not at the measure of what you ask, but at the disposition of your soul.
But I am afraid that under the impulse of this grief, you may seek a greater madness in your heart, desiring what goes beyond mere restoration. For if men now wish to assume the likeness of a tender damsel, wearing their locks long behind, and the women uncover their heads without shame, all this is satanical confusion. Do not let your confidence rise or fall with the thickness of your hair. The olive tree that is wild, when grafted in, partakes of the root and fatness, not because of its outward bark but because of the life that flows within. You are grafted into Christ. Is His life not enough to give you honor, though every hair forsake your head?
Consider the blessed Elijah, clothed in a rough mantle of hair, or John the Baptist, whose garment was of camel’s hair. Their manliness was not diminished by the coarseness of their covering, nor would baldness have lessened the holiness that shone from their countenances. The devil, however, through the spectacles of this world, pours out strong wine of impurity, making men and women fret over the flexure of a limb, the dressing of hair, the gaze of an eye. All these things are full of uncleanness when they chain the soul to earthly care. Your confidence as a man, and your readiness for marriage, relies not on the abundance of your locks, but on the steadfastness of your faith and the fear of God.
Pray then, not that your head be adorned with new hair as with molten gold, but that your inward man be clothed with the garment of righteousness. If the Lord sees fit to keep you as you are, or even to make you utterly bare, receive it as the discipline of a Father who knows what is best for your salvation. The root of true beauty is not on the scalp but in the heart that cleaves to Jesus Christ. Let your prayer be first for this, and if it please Him to add the other, accept it with thanksgiving. But do not build your house upon the fleeting thatch that thieves and moths consume.