Sound of Surviving Blog

IHave you ever looked at the hands around you? Every pair of hands is different; different colors, sizes, scars, blemishes, calloused or smooth. But each pair of hands has the same purpose.

f you want to know how much love a person has given in their life, take a look at their hands. Ephesians 4:28 tells us how we’re supposed to serve others, by working with our hands. Our hands shouldn’t be pristine, or neatly folded in our lap. Our hands are meant to be used to support others, not just physically, but spiritually, and emotionally as well. The wrinkles, blemishes, and callouses on our hands represent not just a life well lived, but a life spent loving others well. Worn and battered hands indicate that we’ve spent our lives not just taking and serving ourselves, but that we’ve spent our lives giving ourselves to others.

Each one of the wrinkles, the blemishes, the callouses, the rough spots, reveals the ways we’ve given pieces of ourselves, to other people, to help fill in their brokenness, to help heal them, rather than to keep ourselves whole and perfect. The stains, the imperfections, and the dirt beneath our nails that our hands show, and let others know that we have lived and we have loved. For what good is life, if we do not have love? Without love, we are nothing. We can have all the riches in the world, but if we lack love, we have nothing.

Our hands are our way of showing that love to the world, to the people around us. The paint smeared across the palms of my hands means that I’ve loved the patients where I volunteer, by bringing in crafts for them to do, my hands gently guiding theirs along the paper. Dirt surrounding my fingernail beds means that I love my nephew by spending time with him, playing outside, and showing him how to dig a small spot to bury worms leftover from fishing in the garden. Scarred and calloused hands mean that I love my family and friends, spending time baking for them, taking trays of cookies, or pie and cake tins in and out of the scorching oven. The markings and blemishes on each of our hands show different ways we’ve given pieces of ourselves to others, the multitude of times we’ve chosen to love, in a world full of sorrow.

Dirty hands may not be acceptable to society. But they should be. Dirty hands, are what make us human. Isn’t it love, that they say distinguishes humans from all other species? If our hands are grimy from the muck of all that is love, from wiping off the dirt of doubt off of others’ wings, so that they can have the courage to spread their wings and fly, then so be it. I’d rather have filthy hands from loving others, than a love of my own neatly folded, flawless hands placed in my lap, any day. For what good is love if we don’t choose to spread it on our hands to give to others?