Into your hands…
It’s been one full week of walking my three boys across the parking lot from my school to theirs. I think we’ve had just about a half dozen close calls already. Turns out, it’s super hard to keep three boys walking close to mommy. They all want to go their own way, walk their own special walk, balance for a bit on the red painted curb and run free in the muddy grass of the median.
I tried the first morning to make the boys hold my hands (quite a gymnastic feat trying to get three hands into two, but we make it work), but it wasn’t long before their hands slipped one at a time out of mine. “We aren’t babies, mom” is what they conveyed to me through the gentle release of their hands to freedom.
Truth be told, their hands are gradually slipping out of mine these days as they become more independent and more sure of themselves. It’s hard because I want my hands to be the ones to which they trust their lives, their joys, and their sorrows. As they grow and their hands begin to slip a little further away from mine each day, I take comfort in the fact that there are Someone’s hands always ready to replace my own. And these hands will guide them further than I ever could.
This week I’m using a prayer found in Hearts on Fire by Teilhard de Chardin, SJ in prayer services with our students. My colleague and I adapted the prayer a little to fit the service. I thought I’d share our adapted version with you all this morning as we remember 9/11 and as we mourn and grieve all those lost just this year. May we all gain strength from these words and the knowledge of the hands longing to carry us through all of it.
I’ve come to believe that the only prayer we can offer up,
during these hours when the road before us is shrouded in darkness,
is that of our master on the cross:
“Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Into the hands that broke and gave life to the bread,
Hands that blessed and were pierced
Hands through which so great a love is transmitted, especially when we suffer or are afraid.
It is good for us to say “Into your hands we commend our spirits”
And in so doing find the peace and hope we long for.
