Faith is the Key

“Faith is the key...” Romans 4:16

In my other Bible, I read, “It all depends on faith, everything is grace.” 

Last week I had my hair cut by my favorite haircutter because my hair was scraggly and we were going to have our big celebration for the 50th anniversary of our family business. My sister Peggy told me not to have it cut too short and I did give Bernie that instruction but unfortunately I asked him to tell me his story and it was a long story so my hair got shorter and shorter. 

Bernie’s ‘salon’, if it can be called that, is like a hole in the wall next to a dingy car repair shop. He charges P60 (little over a dollar), but I am more satisfied every time I go to him than when I go to expensive parlors. I asked him where he learned to cut hair. He comes from Isabela in the Cagayan Valley and his father was a poor farmer. He wanted to go to school but there was no money for any of the family to go to school. He asked a relative in Manila if he could go stay with her for a while and she agreed. In Manila, even while he was still a teenager, he would find jobs as a houseboy. On his third job, his boss said, “Bernie, you’re not going to be a houseboy forever. I will pay for the haircut and grooming course in TESDA so you can learn a skill.” After he finished that, and he went to school, he would charge P5.00 to cut hair. All his classmates would have their hair cut and he would be able to buy school supplies and books. He is the only one of his siblings who can read and write. He sent his nephew and niece to school and they graduated already, have their own homes, and cars and families. He bought his brother in the province a rice field. He sends money home to his mother regularly. 

While telling his story, he would call himself “bakla” (homosexual), and he told me most of his friends could not save any money because they would “rampa” all the time. What’s rampa, I asked him. “Go after men. Different men who just fool them for their money.” 

While talking to him, I was praying if there was anything God wanted me to say, but Bernie would keep talking, and cutting. He said he was “palasimba”, a churchgoer. He would pray to God, “Lord, please give me a house. Even if it’s just a ‘kubo’, a hut.” Eventually he was able to buy a house in a gated subdivision. He said he was so grateful to God for his blessings. “Lord, I only asked for a hut, and you gave me a concrete home.”

Yes, faith is the key. I think God gave each of us a key. It’s up to us to use it to open doors, or to let the key sit unused. Sometimes we even lose the key. But if we open one door, work hard, love those God gives us to love, other doors will appear and we can use the same key to open more doors.