Hands

Hands! These hands belong to my wife and her three sisters. Actually they had this picture taken to show off their newly done finger nails. Unfortunately the nails didn't show up too well, but my oh my, the hands sure did. Makes an interesting picture.

One wonders as you look at persons hands what all those hands have done. Our hands help us do about everything don't they. I can't imagine what I would do without even part of one hand, let alone with only one hand. One hand isn't enough to do most of the things we do - it takes two.

These are the hands of a 95 year old woman - my wife's mother. What beautiful hands! Fingers so straight, nails so nice! And after giving birth to nine children, raising to adulthood seven of those nine, doing all the things a mother needed to do to do all of that. Her life was not easy at times, and having been born in an Amish home, she had a lot of work to do even as a child, most things done "by hand," as we say. And still having such nice hands! She was so blessed, and in her blessing, blessed many, many people in her life.

I'm not sure I would want a picture of my hands, at least not put on the internet. I recall looking at and touching my father's hands as his body was lying in the casket. I thought, boy, I sure hope my hands never look like that. Guess what - I think my hands already look like his did, and I have a way to go to be as old as he was when he died.

But my hands still work fairly well. Oh, they're not as good at doing some things as they used be, they get cramps in them a lot when I'm working at certain things, but for the most part they're still very usable. When my father was teaching me how to do carpentry, he said that I needed to be able to draw a line on a board and split the line with my hand saw. That takes very steady hands, but after a lot of practice I was able to do pretty good with that. But not anymore. One's whole body needs to cooperate for the hands to do something like that and mine doesn't anymore.

How about your hands? Not only how do they look, but what do they speak to you now? Our hands do tell a story you know. Even though Mom's hands looked so very good at age 95, they still told a story of a lot of hard work through the years. Most hands will tell a story of some kind - perhaps a finger or two is missing from an accident, perhaps some fingers are crooked from arthritis, perhaps some nails have been infected by psoriasis or some other disease. Or perhaps like mine, some will simply show signs of aging, like the veins showing through the thin skin, raised knuckles from arthritis, etc., or whatever aging does to ones hands.

I think of Jesus' hands - He used them to bless many people, and in his crucifixion his hands were pierced through with nails. After His resurrection He used his nail-scarred hands to prove His identity to His disciples. Jesus' hands were very special hands.

Granted these words are somewhat rambling, but I look at my hands a lot, have to you know, and while I'm not excited about what I see, I'm very glad that I still have them and they are in working order. Hopefully that will continue. I want to bless others by the work and touch of my hands. Hopefully you will too.

Pilgrim on the way