pieces and ponderings

The other night child number 3 and I made the most delicious fried apple pies.  It was a culinary success and we celebrated with high-fives.  As I reached upward to slap my hand against his, I was amazed at how small my hand looked…dwarfed in size by his large hand.

Wait a minute…I used to close my fingers around his hand as we walked through a store…or to his Sunday school class at church…or across a street…now my hand looked like that of a child’s compared in size to his.

The hands of people in our lives tell stories…they conjure up memories.

I remember clinging to my father’s hand when my hand was so small that I could wrap all of my fingers around his big index finger.  I remember walking that way,  side by side, holding on to him and knowing that I was with the one who could protect me better than anyone else.

I remember other hands too; my infant sister’s hands that seemed so small compared to my big four-year-old hands;  J.J. Johnson’s hand that I held for the first time back in fourth grade; my momma’s hands that were always busy doing for others, the way they look like my own, except more experienced with all kinds of know-how.

I remember hoping as a young teen that I would have a husband one day who always wanted to hold my hand and I think of the many, many times and situations that Bryan Darling has laced his fingers between mine.  I remember all of my babies’ hands and watching them grow, until all but one of them now have hands bigger than my own.

I remember my grandmother’s hands, long and graceful looking, and the way she held them on her lap, fingers interlocked, pointer fingers extended like making a church steeple in a children’s finger play.  I remember my other grandmother’s hands that could snip a branch off of any tree or plant and get it to re-root and grow on its own.

You remember the hands in your lives too.  Hands that belong to childhood playmates, mothers, fathers, teachers, grandparents, spouses, children, and best friends…we all have memories of hands in our lives.

A devotional quote I read says, “The clinging hand of His (God’s) child makes a desperate situation a delight to Him.”  I think about holding on to my strong father’s hand as a child.  As tightly as I thought that I was holding on to him, I now know something that only growing up would teach me.  I could never have held on to my father’s hand as tightly as he could hold on to mine.  When I have held the hands of my children in certain situations, times when I thought their safety might be at stake, I held on to them in such a way that it would be difficult for their hand to slip from mine.

When I experience times that make me afraid…when I’m faced with seemingly desperate situations, like the devotional quote talked about, fear can easily sweep away rational thoughts until anxiety rules my heart and mind.  That’s when I need to remember that my Father God is right there to hold my hand.  Isaiah 41: 10says, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

Verse 13 continues, “For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you.’”

And as tightly as I may think that I can hold on to the hand of my Heavenly Father, the truth of the matter is that He is the One holding on to me.  And He can hold on to me in such a way that nothing can remove me from His grasp.