Handprints

Hello all, sorry I have not had time to update from Christmas or my recent Haiti trip. I will post soon. Life has been extremely crazy since christmas eve.
I really liked this. It was on my work web site. It is nice to work at a religious hospital. I try to ask God to show me where he wants me to leave my handprints and follow through.
Steph


By Chaplain Don Williams

In the frontier days many of the settlers built their prairie homes out of logs and used muddy clay to fill the cracks between them. The clay would harden and they would have a solid, air-tight wall for the winter, but each fall the pioneers had to repack the clay before winter. One fall a toddler pressed his little, chubby hand deep into the soft clay where his mother had just patched a gap between the logs. She picked up the child, carried him into the house, and cleaned his hands. She forgot to go back and redo the spot where the toddler had left his handprint. That winter the child became ill and died. The pioneer mother never redid the spot where her little boy had pressed his hand deeply into the clay. A number of years later when her eyesight was very poor, her husband saw her stooping down beside the cabin and gently rubbing her hands across the little handprint that their young son had left for them.
I am reminded of the number of times that Jesus left His handprint in the lives of others. He took the hand of a young girl who had died and said, “Young maiden arise,” and she came to life. He made clay out of dirt and saliva, rubbed it on the eyes of a blind man and gave him sight. He touched the leper and made him whole. He went to Calvary and allowed nails to be driven through His hands for you and me. He did that so that we could see, be whole, and have life now and forever more.
Each one of us leaves our handprints in the lives and hearts of more people than we will ever realize. The questions we must ask ourselves are: “What kind of ‘prints’ am I leaving in the hearts and souls of others? Will they stoop down and gently rub their hands across our print and remember it with love and affection? How do I want my handprints of life to look in the hardened clay of time?”
You determine what you do with your hands and what kind of prints you will leave. This New Year, use your hands like Jesus used His: to help others, to lift burdens, to heal, and to offer friendship and love. Let us lift, “Holy Hands to God.”