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Saturday 30 August 2014

HAVE YOU EVER LOOKED AT YOUR HANDS




“HAVE YOU EVER LOOKED AT YOUR HANDS”


Stes de Necker


Shortly before my dear late mother passed away, I visited her in the care centre where she was lying in her bed, looking at her hand holding a handkerchief. She always held a handkerchief in her hand, with the one end wrapped around her pointing finger.

Not really wanting to disturb her but wanting to check on her at the same time, I said, 'I didn't mean to disturb you mom, but you were just lying there looking your hand and I just want to make sure you were ok'

She looked at me and smiled. 'Yes, I'm fine dear, thank you for asking,'

And that was when she related this to me:

'Have you ever looked at your hands,' she asked. 'I mean really looked at your hands?'

I slowly opened my hands and stared down at them. I turned them over, palms up and then palms down. No, I guess I had never really looked at my hands as I tried to figure out the point she was trying to make.

‘Think for a moment about your hands, how they have served you well throughout your years.
‘These hands of mine, though wrinkled shrivelled and weak have been the tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace life.

'They braced my fall when as a toddler, preventing me from crashing to the floor.

‘They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. As a child, my mother taught me to fold them in prayer.  They held your farther and wiped my tears when he was not around.

'They have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bent.  They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold you as a baby. Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world that I was married and loved someone special

‘They wrote my letters to him and trembled and shook when I buried your grandparents and uncles and aunts.

'They have held my children and grandchildren, consoled neighbours, and shook in fists of anger when anyone of you were harmed or got mistreated. 

‘They have covered my face, combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body. They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw. And to this day, when not much of anything else of me works real well, these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to fold in prayer.

'These hands are the mark of where I've been and the ruggedness of life.

‘But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach out to and take when he leads me home.

And with these hands He will lift me to His side and there I will use these hands to touch the face of God.'

I never looked at my hands the same way again after that.   

So every time when my hands hurt or when they're sore or when I stroke the faces of my children, I remember God reaching out and took my mother’s hands and led her home.





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