Broken nails. Dry skin. Super dry skin. Cracked, bleeding knuckles. Warts. Acid burns from trying to remove said warts. Randomly numb fingers. Hurting bones in my thumbs--early arthritis? Too much texting? Too many kindle page swipes? I'm not sure.
This winter has been the mildest I ever remember in my life. We haven't even gotten our snow shovels out of the backyard shed. We took down the backyard swings but after two weeks, it was so warm that our kids begged us to put them back up. They've played outside almost every day since the second week of January.
Despite the warmth, my skin has taken a beating this winter. Between a bottle-fed baby, recently potty-trained preschooler who can't reach the sink faucet, and husband too busy to do the dishes as often as he usually does, my hands are constantly being exposed to hot running water.
When I look at them, I cringe. My husband gave me a manicure certificate for my birthday in July and I haven't been brave enough to book it because my hands just look so ugly these days. I want to hide them. If gloves didn't bother me so much, I would wear them all the time.
My hands work hard, and I am grateful for them. I am learning not to dismiss my gratitude for them easily. As my baby has switched her "favorite parent" allegiance from my husband to me, I've had to learn to do lots of things one-handed as she perches on my hip. My Jr. Jazz boxing-out skills have come in handy as I learn to use my body to block her freakishly long reach. I think often of Bethany Hamilton and wonder how she's accomplishing motherhood with only one arm, since my experience diapering my ten-month-old uses my entire body!
When the pain is at its worst, but there is still laundry and cleaning and feeding and bathing to be done, I remember another set of hands with "no beauty that man should him desire." These hands also fed and cleaned and bathed and fixed and worked. They also were sacrificed to serve others, cracked and bleeding and probably misshapen from the pain of nails pounded into a palm.
Though those hands did and do far more than mine will ever accomplish, sometimes my hands have the power to act in the place of His.
They soothe a fevered brow
They wipe away some tears
They break bread to nourish small bodies
They help another quench her thirst
They carry the weak and strengthen the faltering
They bathe and clean away the dirt of life
They clothe those who cannot dress themselves
They teach and train and tidy
They bleed willingly and bear the scars
And, without my having to reach, they bring me closer to Him.
