Where are your hands?

Where are your hands?   

How often have the perfect words not come to my rescue at a crucial moment, just to surface later when the moment had passed?  Words of scripture, the truths I know so well, can also evade my memory when I need them most.  When I’m standing in the furnace with my clothes on fire, the reminder to “stop, drop, and pray” is often choked by smoke.  I have solved this dilemma.  When the answers to difficult questions are obscured by the heat of the moment, I use a mind game to contain the fire and minimize the damage.  I just look at my hands to see what they’re holding.

My hands came covered with super glue, big thick globs of it, so, I get unavoidably attached to everything I touch and nothing I try to do will ever break the bond.  Letting go is impossible without supernatural help.  My sticky fingers reach for people, places, and things to entrap, and being stuck to any one of them makes daily living a challenge.  It’s just hard to function encumbered by a large appendage.  I usually exhaust myself with the effort before finally asking God to pry my fingers loose and help me release my death grip on the victim of the moment.  The process rips a lot of skin off my hands – and it hurts. 

Lately, I’ve felt as though the precious things in my life are slipping through my fingers.  The glue isn’t holding, and I’m watching helplessly as I lose my grip on priceless treasures.  My response is to tighten my grip, hold them closer, and try to stem the tide of the draining flow.  The sensation is like fighting an angry river current, and trying to keep my balance while clinging to my possessions.  But I’m not strong enough to hold on and they slip out of my hands, out of my reach, and out of my control. 

My prodigal son made his way home recently after a long, exhausting battle - and brought with him a test positive for HIV.  I want to fix it, and I can’t.  My hands are tied.  They’re in a strangle hold around my child, my fear, my will, and my confusion.  With my eyes clenched shut, trying to hold on to his dear life, I can’t see anything clearly, especially not a solution.  What choices do I have?  What does God want me to do?  I know it’s a pointless struggle, that engaging in a tug-of-war with God is not a winning strategy.  The only way to win peace and perspective is to give up and let go. 

Where are my hands? I know they’re in God’s way, and if I let go, nothing will slip through my fingers but will fall where He plans.  I wouldn’t be trying to catch them before they hit the ground.  But I can’t just pull my hands back.  I’m fused, with no power to sever the attachment.  I can, however, hold my helpless hands up to God and let Him gently loosen my fingers from their grip.  I don’t even have to be motivated to do it.  All I need is a little trust, enough to take the first  step toward Him, and He’ll take it from there. 

I can’t see down river as God can.  The entire trip is planned, each detail.  He knows the course from beginning to end – He built it.  The entire expedition is His show, not mine.  I’m just a player in the cast.  All I have to do is act the part I’m asked to, and do it to the best of my ability; the rest is up to the Director.  He has the script, He knows everyone’s lines, and He knows the ending.  If I try to take on a bigger role, worry about someone else’s part, or give the Director advice for improving His show, I’m going to insert a foreign cog in the wheel of a perfect production - instead of just being another cog in the wheel that produces it.  The show will go on, with or without me.

Letting go of dreams, relationships, health, or people, places, and things, as they fall into the coursing path of life is painful.  But trying to catch and hold onto them as they go by, while being beaten by the rapids, hurts more.  And, it’s as pointless as trying to change the course of the river by standing in it with a hand up and telling it what to do.  It’s all going to slip through my fingers and take me down in my folly.  I can’t heal my son and I can’t change the past.  But I can do my part and do it well; I can do as I’m told without having to know why.  That’s all God expects of me and all I need expect of myself. 

Much more will pass through the waters around me.  Great affluence may come my way, I may be asked to do a job I don’t want to do or feel capable of achieving, or I may lose more of what I want to keep.  There will certainly be peaceful days as well as stormy ones, but I can, in any case, enjoy the view along the way.  He will hold me warm and safe through it all – if I keep my hands in the boat.

I can’t let go of something I don’t really have.  My son is an amazing gift.  He’s brought more joy to my life than I could have imagined, even through his struggles. But I don’t own him.  The Master Gift-giver freely gave him to me, and it is not His intent to rip my child from my hands while I’m screaming in pain.  His design is to give me a daily dose of trusting peace – just enough for today – so I can rest in knowing that God has every detail of His intricate plot under control.  The unshakable foundation of the story is trust.  Trusting that He’s strong enough to keep a firm grip on each of His players, and won’t let one of us drown, however powerful the waves.

It’s not my job to bond myself to my son and carry him through his journey, worry about how he plays his part, or make sure he shows up for practice.  Our routes are separate, and I can’t force them together any more than I can change the course of the river.  If I did, we would both be robbed of learning from the adventures along the way.  We’re going to reach the same destination whether I’m fighting the current the entire way or going with the flow.  I can arrive at the end exhausted with a lot of skin ripped off my hands,  or with a peaceful spirit, having trusted what I can’t see, and satisfied with a job well done.

With my eyes on God, my hands stay in their proper place, I don’t fight raging rivers, and I stay focused on my small part in the production.  My son has his own part to play, and I’m not privy to it.  But I trust the one who is.  The Director is carrying him safely in His hands throughout the journey, and He has the perfect landing place picked out – for both of us.