ONCE UPON A TIME

While I was reading early this morning, I put my book aside and looked at my wrinkled
hands. I started thinking about where they have been and what they have done, and why
do they look like they do.
Once upon a time, long ago, they were so small and so soft. They were held in the hands
of mom and dad to keep me from falling or to pick me up when I did fall down. Once upon
a time they wrote words for the first time. They made a bed or they learned to ride a new
bike. Once upon a time they held a Bible given to me by my parents. Once upon a time
my hands held the hands of a young lady. And then once upon a time almost 43 years
ago they held the hands of my wife and then our children.
These wrinkled hands were once soft and smooth but now they show wrinkles, scars and
smudges of dirt even if my mom did tell me to was my dirty hands, many, many times.
These hands are slowly starting to look like the wrinkled hands of my aging father who
held a big King James Bible in them for the 300th time. When I look at the cast of dad's
hands that are in our house, I remember that once upon a time, not all that long ago,
those hands waved a kiss towards me from the bed upon which dad died.
What do your hands look like? Why do they look as they do? Let me hand it to you to
keep using your hands to do the very best you can to touch someone with compassion
and care like our Lord did with His hands, long, long ago, and even again today.
Every Sunday I look down at my hands while in worship at the early service at church.
While the preacher preaches I see my hands. I see the aging hands that soon will
take communion bread and juice and consecrate it for the congregation and soon
there after, serve them one by one the Lords' Supper. It's then and there that I know
that at that time, I'm doing what God called me to do when I said yes to being a
pastor. But there is something else that happens in that service that touches me.
Years ago I served communion to some of the very people who approach me each
Sunday now. And when they reach out their hands to take the bread, I see aging
hands that were soft and smooth once upon a time.