Day 2

Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the works of His Hands.

Working with the hands...the thing we love to do. God did it, we are commanded to do it...1 Thessalonians. 4: 10-12...We urge you, brethren, to excel still more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

This passage is telling us to keep our nose in our own business, work hard and support yourself so others are not burdened with caring for you, and the way to do that was to work with your hands. Prov. 31:13 credits the virtuous woman with looking for fabric – wool and flax – and working eagerly or with delight with her hands.

So we are, in essence, fulfilling God's command to create...to love to work, to do it well, to make something that can benefit ourselves and others, and to enjoy doing it...to be eager to do it.

What a calling!

And don't you just love the unity of scriptures? And to find out that in some small way, we are also obeying them. I can't say that I obey them all, but this one, to keep my hands busy, is pretty easy to do.

A couple of years ago I managed to hurt my right hand. It was terrible. I had gotten one of those thumb-roller-ball mouses for the computer, which irritated it, and then tried to open a window by reaching over the back of the sofa, downwards, and using my thumbs as the lifting force...big mistake. It not only hurt the thumb, it took out my neck and shoulder as well. After treatment by the chiropractor, I realized that this was not going to be a rapid recovery. I spent a whole month unable to use my right hand. I couldn't hold a pencil, a needle, or even a book in my right hand. I couldn't do much of anything. I held books with my left hand and used the outer side of my right hand to prop the book open. That was awkward, but doable. The ability to work with my hands was taken away from me. I prayed like never before to regain use of them. It was just a thumb, but I found out just why God created them and how inconvenient not having one was. The ideas in my head were not able to be carried out, and it was frustrating, but I chose to accept the downtime and read scriptures and the book by Bill Bright about dying. Strange thing at the age of about 50 to read a book about dying, but it spoke to me where I was. I had to die to myself for that whole month and not do the thing I felt created to do. And to draw near. To be with God and not just be like Him in the desire to create. And it was refreshing. I told God that if I was never able to use my hand again that I would still worship and create in any way that He would let me, and if taking my hobby away was His goal that I was ok with that. If it was a redirection, I would take that other road and trust that it was better than the one I was on.

Needless to say, I am using that hand to type right now. I use it to grip and hold, to cut and sew, to worship in the way that I can, by serving others by sewing. And I am grateful. For the thumb and all of the lessons it taught me, as well as how well it works right now. And to be able to again follow the mandate of Thessalonians to work with my hands.