While sitting with my grandson, I noticed he was staring intently at my hands. Now you need to know, he has the ability to make me feel more self-conscious than anyone else in the world. I asked him why he was staring and if anything
was wrong with them. “No Nana, “ he answered, “ I was just thinking, your hands sure have seen a lot!” Okay, he may have got the cliché wrong, but he definitely got me thinking.
Hands. Those two intricate, prehensile,
multifingered body parts play such an important role in our daily lives. It’s not just physical. Even the word, hand, is so tightly interwoven in our idiom and language that it’s taken for granted.
So, raise your hands everyone if you’ve
heard any of these. Washing your hands is a good thing, although you don’t want someone to wash their hands of you. You’d probably rather people be hands-on than hands off, but in any case you don’t want to get caught red-handed. Some things
go hand in hand, like a hand in a glove. Hands down we’d all like to deal with someone who’s open handed and willing to lend a helping hand. No one wants to feel their hands are tied, hear “ Hands up and hand it over”, or live hand
to mouth. We’d all like to have time on our hands to perhaps play a hand of poker or just hold hands with a loved one. There are ‘talking hands’ as in sign language or lovely hula hands. And of course, who can forget Albrecht Durer’s
‘Praying Hands’.
Equines are measured in ‘HH’ or Hands High. A handbreadth is 4 inches, so an average horse is 15 hands or 60 inches high at the withers. There are little monkeys trained to help the disabled and they’re
called “ Helping Hands”.
Unfortunately, sometimes you have to play the hand that’s dealt you. At the end of the day, I leave it all in His hands. Tomorrow will be here soon enough and it will be all hands on deck again.
Jack
was right. After 38 years in the nursing profession, these old hands have ‘seen’ a lot. More importantly, however, they have been honored time and time again to touch, hold and shake hands with so many individuals who have devoted their lives in
ministering to others through the art of nursing. The approximately 500 pairs of hands belonging to our Community Elder Care nurses comfort the sick, support the weak, close the eyes of the weary and do whatever it takes to better the lives of those in their
care. Daily these men and women serve our residents with a spirit of compassion and gentle strength. May 6-12, 2012 is National Nurses Week and I ask you to remember our own Community Elder Care nurses and nurses everywhere at this time. Perhaps you’ll
join me and thousands of others across the country as we ask God to bless all those loving, nursing hands.
- Blessed be the works of your hands, O Holy One
- Blessed be these hands that have touched life
- Blessed be these hands that
have felt pain
- Blessed be these hands that have embraced with compassion
- Blessed be these hands that have clenched in anger or withdrawn in fear
- Blessed be these hands that have drawn blood and administered medicine
- Blessed
be these hands that have cleaned beds and disposed of wastes
- Blessed be these hands that have anointed the sick and offered blessing
- Blessed be these hands that grow stiff with age
- Blessed be these hands that have comforted the dying
and held the dead
- Blessed be these hands that hold the future
- Blessed be these hands, for they are the work of your hands, O Holy One
(adapted from the National Health Ministries-‘Blessing of the Hands’)
Thank you and God bless you for everything you do every day.