Every Hand Has A Story
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I have seen many things in my life, but one of the most fascinating things I have been able to experience is exploring the human body inside and out during human anatomy class when I was in physical therapy (PT) school.
There are many lessons I learned during PT School, but my anatomy class gave me a greater appreciation for God and His creativity.
I would like to specifically talk about the hand today in our blog. No, I am not getting ready to give you a lecture on the hand, but I would like to share some fascinating thoughts.
Humbling Experience
My anatomy class was a humbling experience. It taught me how great and amazing God is.
As PT students, we had a great respect for those who donated their bodies for us to learn and explore the genius of God.
Every part of the human body is fascinating to me, but today I want to talk a little about the hand.
The hand isn’t the biggest structure in the body, but it has the most bones. The most interesting thing I’ve found about the hand is that every hand has a story.
Just ask a hand orthopedic specialist or a hand therapist, they will tell you that every hand has a story. The size, texture, etc. will tell you a lot about a person. A hand will explain a life from birth to death.
The Greatest Hand Story
The greatest hand story is the Story of my Savior. I would have loved to examine the hands of Jesus.
Although I wasn’t able physically examine his hands, he has the greatest story known to man and his hands tell the story.
1. Child Hands. Jesus started his life just like we did. He lacked coordination and fine motor skills in his hands as a child. As a child, His hands lacked maturity.
2. Young Man Hands. As Jesus continued to grow and develop, He began to notice the strength in his hands increasing. But like us, He had strength and endurance as a young man, but He lacked endurance. In other words, He was quick to work and start things, but was yet capable of finishing things.
3. Carpenter Hands. At this stage of Jesus’ life, His hands were mature. If we had the ability to examine his hands as carpenter, we would see stronger hands filled with calluses, splinters, and blisters. They did not have the machines, lotions, crèmes, etc. when Jesus was a carpenter. So his hands had plenty wounds from working with various pieces of wood. This line of work naturally taught our Savior patience and perseverance.
Jesus also had to be creative, insightful, and purposeful. Our Savior was able to take a chunk of wood and turn it into a beautiful piece of furniture. He would spend much time turning nothing into something. As a carpenter, our Father was preparing His hands to deal with our hearts. It is quite easy to feel unworthy, unable, insecure, and doubtful as humans. But Jesus’ hands are prepared to deal with all our emotions. Just like the wood he once carved, He has experience turning what we would think would be junk into masterpieces. It’s time for us to trust His carpenter hands.
4. Compassionate Hands. Carpentry taught Jesus many lessons, but one day He had to put down the wood and started working on the heart of man. He began preaching at young age, but it wasn’t until His hands developed compassion that He was able to greater things to change our world.
The skills of creativity and vision He developed as a carpenter filled Him confidence to perform miracles in the name of our Father. He was able to heal the sick, cast demons, bring the dead back to life, still storms, walk on water, open the eyes of the blind, and change water to wine. And He was able to do much more, but His hands were suited to perform these miracles because of His care for our world. He had compassionate hands to serve mankind. His purpose today was the same back then, He wanted to help humans deal with the struggles of life because He was very familiar with life’s pains.
5. Crucified Hands. Everything before this point in Jesus life gave Him the strength to carry the cross. It’s hard to go anywhere without noticing a image or replica of a cross. Many people buy gold, platinum, and silver crosses and dangle them from their necks. The cross is a reminder of our Savior’s crucified hands.
When Jesus died on the cross, the nails alone going through his hands shattered and broke many of His hand bones. The holes from the nails caused blood to pour out of His hands, but also it exposed the nerves, veins and arteries in the location of the nails. His crucified hands were full of pain.
The pain in His hands represents our struggles, our pains, our idiosyncrasies, and our lives. He took the form of man and took on all of our pains to better our lives.
6. Open Hands. If you remember the story of Jesus, He died but also rose. So our Savior is still alive and His hands are still at work in our lives. Jesus is still at work with his hands open wide inviting everyone possible to examine His hands. He knows that if you take a look at his hands, you will start looking at your hands quite differently.
What’s Your Story?
Remember, all our hands have a story. What have hands been saying up to this point in your life? What are they saying now? What will they say in the future?
Your story is just as important as anyone else’s story.
There is no way we can be just like Christ, but make sure when you and others look at the story of your hands that your story will include and embrace the beautiful life of our Christ. I don’t believe this is an unreasonable expectation because every time Jesus looks at His hands, He can see your life in the palm of His hands because we are part of HIStory.
Question: What’s the story of your hands? Leave your comments below.
Peace and Prosperity, Bryant Hall MTN Universal, LLC
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