I Love Your Hands!

I haven't been paying much attention to my hands these days. The other day my four-year old son looked at my hands and said, "Mommy, your hands are all wrinkly like a grandma." I laughingly said, "Oh, I have just been forgetting to put lotion on them lately." A moment later he returned with a little puddle of lotion cradled in his small, perfect palm, and started rubbing it into my hand. This thoughtful response really hit me. Honestly it reminded me of the woman in Luke 9 who rubbed oil all over Jesus' feet when everyone else in the room was concerned with religious precepts and political affiliations. Now, let me be clear, I'm certainly not comparing myself to Jesus. But I am suggesting that when Jesus answered his disciples inquiry about who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven with, "Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." he was talking about moments like these. What Jesus saw in children is something so pure, attentive, and vulnerable that we often overlook it, preoccupied as we are by the business of the day, our own insecurities, and our tendency to put our deep concerns on the back burner. What first sounded like a criticism, "your hands look wrinkly" revealed itself to be deep caring and concern.
I admitted I had been forgetting to care for myself, and my sweet boy went and got lotion and cared for me.

I have always loved hands. I have what I can only hope is a real memory of a photograph I saw somewhere as a child. It was a black and white of an elderly Native American woman with a kind, dark, leathery face mapped with deep lines that seemed to surround her features with a powerful topography. In her arms she cradled a newborn baby softly with her long fingers wrapped most of the way around his tiny head. Where her fingers came across his cheek, the dark, leathery, lined story of her hand met the soft, smooth, creamy newness of his face's yet untold story. I remember thinking, right then and there, how beautiful her hands and face were. On some level I think I felt how powerful it was to behold the face that she had earned. And those hands. Those hands had held so many babies; washed so many clothes so that others had something to wear; ground so many bowls of corn into flour for meals; cleaned so many dishes so that her family may be fed; and shaped so many hard, gritty lumps of clay into beautiful sturdy bowls for the table, and into vases for the windowsills.

I have a wood carving that Dave and I bought in Southern Germany. It is a little boy leaning into the curved palm of a big hand. I love this image. It's my image of God. No matter what circumstances are swirling around me, no matter how tired I am, or how overwhelmed by worry I feel, when I imagine myself held like that in what I'm sure is God's very calloused, lined, leathery, strong hand, I know I am loved--just like the vulnerable baby held safely in his elderly grandmother's wonderfully old hands. From those old hands he will learn what love, gentleness, and nurture really look and feel like.

The other day a set of very young, very soft, very little hands reminded me what love, gentleness, and nuture look and feel like. My son's new, unlined, smooth hands began to tell their own story. They told a story about how the sweet boy to whom they belong is learning to think about others; learning to figure out what others need; developing a heart full of compassion that wants to help those in need.

I haven't been paying much attention to my hands these days, but my son has. On some level he seems to know that they hold him when he's scared, make the meals that nourish him, wipe his bottom, wash his hair, wash his clothes, and clap for him when he does fabulous things. Yesterday when we were walking into our local book and toy store (yes, we have only one in our little town) he slid his hand out of mine as we approached the door, as he always does to feel independent. This time, though, he looked down at my hand as he let go and said, "Mom, I love your hands." I was so caught off guard by this that I almost teared up. In the moment I just said, "thank you, buddy. I love your hands too." But what I would like to say to him now is more like "Thank you, my sweet little man. Thank you for giving them the stories they tell."