WIDDERSHINS
Oh Gee willickers! Dang! Sometimes I’m a knucklehead but that ninkompoop is worse! But fiddlesticks! It’s not just hunky dory these days. Things just seem to be moving in the wrong direction in our world today - more like counter-clockwise or in other words: Widdershins!
And yet, what an awesome, amazing, adventurous place it is! What a privilege we have to live, work and serve in such a broken world. We are the hands and feet of Jesus. The apostle Paul shared in Galations 5:13 that,
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
I am a barefoot mamma who loves to kick off her shoes and walk in the grass in the summer. Then I think about my hands. Palms up - palms down, turn them over and hold them open. When I think about my feel and hands, it reminds me of how they have served me throughout my years. I’ve got bunions and callouses on my feet and my hands have wrinkles and are shriveled and worn, but both have helped me all my life.
My feel have carried me on sandy shores and rocky mountainous trails. They have dipped into the waves of the ocean and walked in a cold stream. They have kicked soccer balls in grassy fields and pedaled a bicycle along a paved path. I have stood on them through seasons of childbearing years sometimes endless nights pacing the floor with a newborn and at the hospital bedside of my loved ones.
These hands have written letters and books and trembled when I read my parent’s obituaries at their passing. They have held my children and grandson, consoled neighbors and friends, cooked meals for others and been clenched in anger at times when I didn’t understand what was happening.
Both hands and hands have been bent and broken, dry and raw, scarred and bleeding. Now that I am older, they still work but even though I’m not as nimble as I used to be, I can still clasp them in prayer and hold others in love, even if I have to stand on tiptoes to reach a hug. More importantly, these will be the hands that God reaches out to take me and the feet that will walk toward Him when he reaches out to take me home.
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” Matthew 14:31
I don’t doubt for a moment that His nail-scarred hands hold me until then. I pray he is holding you.