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9/27/2018 2 Comments on all our hands can carryi hopped in my car the other day feeling fragile, like the world & all its weighted pain & problems were throwing darts at my heart, slowly deflating its resilience. i often walk through my days feeling fragile, feeling threatened by the pain in my little world & in every person’s little world & in the whole wide world. so as i drove down familiar roads among hundreds of other cars, all holding little worlds, i broke down under the weight i was holding in my hands & the weight i was bottling up inside my heart & all i was trying to take on in my mind & it all felt like too much to carry so i invited the tears & remembered what a friend shared the other day : tears mean your heart is working. (not to say that if you don’t cry as much as i do, your heart is malfunctioning, but you get the point)
i revisited the same kind of concept with my sister this morning as we strolled to the park under the trees with two babies & two toddlers & two red wagons & two blueberry muffins & as we rallied our little ones toward the swings, we tried our best to put into words how doggone hard it is to be human & to feel things at a soul level & how it sometimes feels like there are a million problems that need solutions & how there’s not enough time in the day to address them all & how our hearts have a hard time handling even one of them & how all we want to know is that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing & that we’re exactly where we need to be & that we’re carrying plenty in our little hands. we didn’t tie up the conversation in a neat little bow or tidy up our thoughts with neat solutions & hollow conclusions, but a few minutes later, one of the little ones ran up to me for another handful of popcorn & as i poured a few kernels into his open hands, some rested on his tiny palms & others fell to the ground but i assured him that it was okay that they fell & that the kernels he was already holding were plenty. he ran away happily responsible for those few kernels & i immediately thought what a silly analogy it is but that’s kind of a picture of God & us because our little hands can only carry so much & that’s the design & the rest of what we can’t carry in our own, God will give to other open hands to hold. i carried that silly analogy back to the swings & shared it with kelly & we laughed at how simple that picture is but how it might’ve just been exactly what we needed for our morning. in the meantime of figuring out what my hands are carrying & what they don’t have to be carrying right now, i’m on my way to making peace with the fact that i was designed to be highly sensitive & i’m learning to see it as something to be celebrated instead of despised, but i think along with it must come the realization that my hands were only meant to carry so much & even if it’s only a few popcorn kernels here & there, i’m doing just fine. so here i am, propping up this analogy on a screen for anyone to see & hoping that we’ll all consider what we’re meant to carry right now & what we’re meant to leave for other open hands. whatever your hands are carrying, carry them well & give those people & those jobs & those passions & those hobbies your time & your energy & all your love & kindness & compassion & steer your heart towards them over & over again because the world needs your little hands, full of purpose & full of light.
2 Comments
Sue Gaechter
9/28/2018 06:36:42 am
Bethany, once again beautifully & powerfully said! It is so true, our hands are only meant to carry so much. This is important to remember. It brought to mind a quote by Sarah Williams, "Because I spent the strength Thou gavest me in struggle which Thou never didst ordain, and have but dregs of life to offer Thee-- Oh Lord, I do repent."
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Mandy
9/28/2018 10:20:38 am
💜 this & 💜 you.
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