Hands

You can tell a lot about someone simply by looking at their hands.

I can recall a time, several years ago, when my hands were worn, cracked, and dry from pulling steel wrenches while lying under school buses eight hours a day. I still have a scar on my left hand from helping my dad load some scrap tin onto a ladder rack and having it slice my palm open. There is a bit of a calloused groove worn into the top joint of the middle finger on my right hand from years of note taking and figuring middle school math problems. Embarrassingly, there is a tiny scar on my right thumb from being shot through by a BB gun. There are all manner of scars, lines, and grooves worn by the natural happenings of life.

I can remember my maternal grandmother's hands. Ma's hands were especially brown towards the tips of her middle and index fingers from a lifetime of smoking unfiltered cigarettes, but she still liked to wear rings--it even seemed as if she had one for each finger. Some were costume rubies surrounded by minuscule diamonds, while others looked more like gold-leafed characters of calligraphy clinging to the joints of her fingers.

I even remember Mr. Tessier from the seventh grade. I remember his hands because he was missing a finger on one hand, and I thought that was one of the most interesting things I had ever seen.

Our hands tell us a lot about who we are.

Hands folded in prayer say a great deal about one's need to plead with God. Hands reaching out to grasp tell us of our need to have and to hold, to want and to take. Hands knotted in fists tells us of anger, hatred, and ignorance. Hands pierced by cold iron tell us of a God who longs to love us with more than an omnipotent arrogance of divinity.

What do your hands tell you?

CPT