October 24, 2013

Greetings and love to all on this sunny, crisp fall day.

This morning as I have my coffee, pray, and try to be close to my Creator, my mind settles on my hands. I am rather repulsed as I look at the gnarly, wrinkled old things. They never have been slender, smooth and polished even when I was younger. I’d try and then a project would come along that required plunging them into paint, eaves troughs, diaper pails, you name it. I’ve never been able to do things wearing gloves so even when my hands were young and supple; they weren’t pretty. No one would want to photograph them showing off a beautiful ring–that’s for sure. Possibly they might do to advertise potting soil or paint remover.

Now, they are even worse. The years have made the fingers crooked. Teen years left a permanently jammed pinkie from a baseball. Young mother years left them rough from wringing out diapers, and learning to cook, years of crafts left paper cuts, exacto knife slices, glue gun burns and so many other disfigurements. I don’t regret doing any of these things,. They gave me much pleasure. I just don’t like the general knobbiness and bony big knuckles that they left behind after 84 years of hard use and general abuse.

My Creator made these handy, indispensable items at the end of my arms with absolutely amazing abilities. They do all sorts of things. They have fantastic mechanisms to tackle big jobs and tiny ones. Their design is one only devised by an indescribable God who did and does magnificent things. Unfortunately some things they do are not so good, but I try to dwell on the wiping of tears from faces, caressing a babies cheek, and serving others to the best of my ability. They’ve done things I’m ashamed of, and things I am rather proud of; but in all they have been my most useful appendages.

I look at little Colton’s unused and tiny hands. They are the most beautiful things: so perfectly formed to pick up a cheerio and pop it right into his mouth or to reach up toward Great Gram for a hug. Already they have the inclination to pat old Gram’s cheek. No sight is more lovely than those amazingly beautiful little hands which at birth even had the time lines, and knuckle wrinkles for future use.
Then I remember my mother’s hands. The term “work-worn” doesn’t do them justice. They were gnarled and twisted with fingers permanently curled into grotesque shapes. Her right hand had one finger missing all the way down to the tendon of the wrist, leaving a deep valley of wrinkles all the way. I guess you could say they were claw like. They were beautiful to me. They represented countless hours of gentle touches: soothing hurt feelings and genuine pain. They wrote words of loving and caring when I was far away. They rolled out dozens and dozens of ginger cookies for dozens and dozens of children and adults. They pummeled bread dough for thousands, they hoed and toiled on the farm to feed her family and then they toiled some more to teach so many classrooms full of young minds that needed her touch. I can’t write all they did but they were lovely hands that did it. I wish I could see them again. God made those hands for loving and they faithfully performed their duty for Him. I pray that little Colton’s hands will grow to be serving the Lord some day.

I look at my own misshaped hands and hope they also have been instruments of loving care. I pray they still can be useful to type encouraging words to you. I hope someday my hands can be almost as beautiful as my mother’s. Today I try to serve God with these hands by typing my praise out and sending it on to you.

God bless you all, Irma Jane