I PUT MY HANDS IN YOURS

PHOTO SOURCE

PHOTO SOURCE

To those who belong to my age, those who have crossed over the 50 summers bridge, in the middle of one or perhaps going to the next decade.  You may have been through this predicament.

I have looked at the back of my hands and I see all the wrinkles and lines in them.  The fingers are out of shape as opposed to how they looked way back then.



They are of great value to me because I have cared for my children with them.  I have patted quite a number of backs with my right hand to encourage or to offer sympathy.  I shook hands with acquaintances and church members with a tight warm grip.

They have washed floors, scrubbed all kinds of surfaces at home and done laundries after laundries with them.

I used them to massage aching backs of family members with tender loving care.  In fact a gentle touch does a lot of cure which enhances good blood circulation, a great aid to a fast recovery.

Being an employee, I depend so much with my hands to do a lot of work.  I work with accounting books and I use the computers.  Therefore, I need my hands to do my work fast and accurate.

Now comes aged hands..... they grow weary easily and they cramp and refuse to budge when you want to hit the keyboard.  What now?

I do love that picture of a hand clasped by a carer, as as symbol of trust and love, as does the picture of a little one's  held by his Dad and Mom.  They are pictures of nurture and security.

We may feel, in our advanced state, the insecurity of not being able to do things like before.  Some of us maybe suffering from different kinds of  illnesses which makes them useless or which may require a lot of help from others.

Looking at them, a picture of wear and tear, I will just hold them close to my heart and think of the love they have gestured with.  I'd like to be remembered in love rather than the beauty my hands show.

How do you see your hands now?  Are you seeing the hands that has put on gloves after gloves registering the years they have toiled?  What memories do they evoke when you look at them.  What if you remember them used as tools of punishment?

I want to share with you a poem written by Joan Walsh Anglund:

I shall be older than this one day.
I shall think myself young when I remember.
Nothing can stop the slow change of masks
my face must wear, one following one.
These gloves my hands have put on, the pleated skin, patterned by the pale tracings of my days…
These are not my hands!
And yet these gloves do not come off!
I shall wear older ones tomorrow, till, glove after glove,
and mask after mask, I am buried beneath the baggage
of Old Woman.

Oh, then, shall I drop them off,
Unbutton the sagging, misshapen apparel of age,
and run, young and naked, into Eternity! 

And with this poem, I shall put my aging hands unto Him who promises me of renewed strength and spirit, to Him who will clasp mine in His as we walk together in Paradise.  Unto His hands I do rest mine.

 

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 

I Corinthians 15:54

LORD, I PUT MY HANDS IN YOURS! 

....And on that promised day, I shall be set free... free of temporary things.  Things that loose value and charm.