holding on //

Holding hands, petting animals, writing, drawing, typing, cooking, eating, driving, rock climbing, shoveling, rolling up snowballs, throwing a ball, shaking hands, washing dishes, washing your body, caressing a loved ones face, folding laundry, pulling the blankets over yourself...

We use our hands all day for a million tasks. Hands are powerful tools we have been given.

Tonight I was settling down at my desk to start another wood burning, the orders have been endless, and it's been such a joy to create so many gifts for people! But I found myself staring at two framed photos I have on my desk:

One is one of my favorite photos, my father holding me, seconds after I was born, the first person to hold me, his hands wrapped around me equalling the size of my body, with my head on his chest so the first sound I heard out of the womb would be his heart...

And the other picture taken by my friend Megann Sanborn of Bryants manly hands gently placed on my back from our engagement photo shoot.

These photos remind me that that I am cherished, adored, provided for, and protected.

I love my husbands hands.

I love my fathers hands

My mothers hands

My siblings hands

and i'm learning

to love my hands.

Loosing Obadiah has caused a whirlwind of unexpected change to occur in deep places in my life. Everything from what I can and cannot eat, how much i'm supposed to exercise, how I manage my time, my energy levels, and, oddly enough, how I view my hands.

It reads in Genesis: "Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."

And the Psalmist writes: "You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb... My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."

These delicate and powerful phrases "intricately woven, knitted together, formed..." speak of the hands of a living God being intentionally involved in creating who we are.

The reason I view my hands differently is because I can't look at them without the image of me holding my intricately woven and formed baby in my hands. And I say this with strength, not weakness. I had looked at my husband in the midst of the pain, and said "he's gone", I felt the formation of life end. I had heard God talk me through the painful delivery and as I sat on the bathroom floor, shaking violently I heard God say "hold your son." It took all the courage I had to reach into a bloody toilet bowl and take a hold of what remained of him.

And it takes courage to trust my God, it takes courage to sing "when the night is holding onto me, God is holding on..." because in that moment, when to the natural eye it would seem as if God was distant, He was closer than I have ever experienced Him.

And close He has remained.

I know He is holding me, I know he is forming me, I know that he has formed my days, before I live them, and I trust and believe that for all mothers who have lost a child before they heard their child cry, before they saw their little fingers attempting to grasp your hand, and for some before you even heard their heart beat... God is with you. He has not left you to deal with this on your own, He mourns with you, He grieves with you, and He will strengthen you. He will fill you with joy again, He will surround you with peace and comfort you.

May you see your hands, and know that you are formed by a God, who cherishes you, adores you, provides for you, and protects you.

May you know that even in the darkest moment... God is holding on.