These Hands

Some years ago, at the celebration of my grandmother's life, my father spoke of her hands. It was a moving tribute that has stayed in my mind. He used the image of her hands to tell the story of her life.

Today as we continued working on winterizing a young family's trailer, a song entitled Hands, by Jewel, kept playing through my mind.

We are God's eyes, God's hands, God's minds.
We are God's eyes, God's hands, God's heart...
We are God's hands. We are God's hands.

So prominent they were in my mind, that I felt led, at the end of the day on the work site, to take pictures of the hands of our team. The pics are on my Facebook page and will be posted to the Grace Church FB page on Thursday.

The hands of Edwin and Paul worked diligently underneath the trailer insulating it against the cold that is sure to come and fixing plumbing leaks and a sewage concern. They spent their days on their backs looking up at the underbelly of the trailer, except when they made road trips to Lowes.

The hands of Mary Jo and Neil were busy all day framing doors, cutting and putting molding on walls, and painting, at times in difficult spaces. My hands were painting, spilling the paint all over the toilet and floor, cleaning it up, cleaning the bathroom as a result, and finally, after stepping back for a short time, painting again.

The thought came to me, thank you Jewel, that our hands are really God's hands. We came to Tennessee as members of Christ's holy church called Grace UMC, willing to be a hands-on presence of the living God. Today, looking at the hands of each team member, through the lenses of the camera, was an interesting exercise in faith, a reminder of the reason we are here in Tennessee doing the work that we are doing, a reminder that our hands are the only hands that God has.

Pray that as we continue our work here, we will use our hands, God's hands, faithfully.