Your Heart is In My Hands

Every day we use our hands to show where our heart belongs.  When we are children, our parents hold our hands while we cross the streets. Our hands are held with another in young love.   We offer our hands in marriage.  We shake the hands of the people we meet. We hold the hand of the loved ones who are dying.

We use our hands to eat, to greet, to love.  The touch of a human hand is the most important gift we can give to each other.  It can console, it can love, it can caress.  We can wave hello or wave goodbye.  We eat with our hands.  We hold a book in our hands.  We embroider with our hands.

We never give a lot of attention to all the things our hands do.  We do most of these things without even realizing the important of hands, touch, and movement.

I am a hand embroidery artist.  I give a lot of attention to my hands and the hands of other people.  You can tell a lot about the hands of another.  Do they look rough from manual labor? Do they look soft? Do they look hard? Do they look like they belong in the hands of another?  Does a person have a lot of rings or do they have any rings at all?  A hand and a heart are so closely bonded together.  When we give our heart to someone we inevitably offer them our hand too.

We make sacred oaths with our hands.  We swear on the bible when we go to court.  We marry and join our hands together.  We pray, we meditate, we love, we comfort.  We do all of those things and so many more with our hands. 

We clap our hands in worship, to appreciate a job well done, to celebrate.  We clasp our hands to pray, to protect, to comfort.  We move our hands with a needle, a guitar, a piano.  We create paintings and pottery and wooden toys.  We use our hands to create a beautiful life every single day.  

I am oh so grateful for my hands and the comfort and meditation they bring me on in an average moment on a simple day.  I give thanks for all the hands they’ve held, all the work they’ve created and all the other simple things I take them for granted for.  What that makes you grateful for your hands?

With that I will take my hands which have been typing this blog post and return to one of my needled endeavors and perhaps give them a kiss to thank them.