Hands . . .

By Don R. Richards, published in The Banner of Love, May 2003

            I remember my father’s hands.

There was always a slight fascination I had watching my father and his hands. 

We all have special, perhaps unusual,  things we remember of our parents or other special people.  I have a special remembrance of my father’s hands.

I can see his hands right now.  My memory, which is not always my best feature, is  very clear though of a picture of his hands.

I grew up in the back shop of a small town newspaper office.   Most readers remember my dad for his ministry, but I remember his also as a community newsman and a printer.  He had learned the trade from his father and grandfather. 

In those days before modern computer technology, all printing was done by the “hot type” method utilizing machines which made raised lines of type on a metal slug. The metal was hot when it first came out of the machine and you had to be adept at handling hot and melting metal and printer’s ink.

Throughout the week, his hands were nearly always stained with printer’s ink.  He was  required to wash with gasoline, followed by a tough coarse soap.    As a result, the rough texture of his hands indicated their manual use as a printer.

One of my father’s favorite practical jokes was to hand to a bystander a line of hot metal type immediately after it came out of the machine.  His hands were hardened by the years of handling hot type, and he could hold the hot metal in his hand very calmly and innocently hand it off to the unknowing bystander.  He never let it be hot enough to cause injury, but the victim would take a firm grasp on the metal, and then quickly drop it.

He taught my brothers and I how to carefully handle the hot type with out getting burned.   He knew the importance of gently handling a dangerous object.   

Although he wouldn’t indicate it openly, his arms and hands were strong from daily lifting the huge, heavy metal pages to carry them to the printing press. He believed in a strong, firm handshake and he had the ability to deliver one.  While the three of us sons enjoy an annual tradition with dad of target practice we preferred rifles, but dad  was most adept with a pistol.  The three of us couldn’t hold the pistol steady enough, but his firm, steady grip allowed him to out shoot us.

My mother used to tell me that my dad’s hands once saved my life.  Those who know me remember that I lost three fingers in a childhood accident when, at age two, I stuck my fingers into the gears of one of my father’s printing presses.  We live almost and hour from the nearest hospital.  In those days before power steering, my dad drove to the hospital with his left hand, as the strength of his right hand was used as a tourniquet on my lower arm to prevent my death by massive blood loss.

He would never discuss or even hint at the strength of his own arms and hands, and I never saw him raise a fist in anger.   But, he was well known for his preaching style of utilizing a clenched fist to indicate the power of the Lord.

I always placed special significance on the talents the Lord blessed him with through his hands.   He knew when the strength of his hands was important and when to emphasize that strength, yet he could be most delicate with an object that required caution and tenderness.  

            I remember times when his calming hand and gentle squeeze on my shoulder meant more than a thousand words.  And I fondly remember his squeeze of my hand as I stood by his deathbed.

 Special significance is placed in our society by the use of the hands to provide comfort and stability.  One known insurance company uses as a sales slogan that with them you are “in good hands”.

I am reminded of all this when I look at the emphasis in the Bible to the use and description of the use of the Lord’s hands.  Numerous times reference in made to the Lord’s hands.   It is meant to imply strength, power, comfort and security.

It implies ultimate authority: “And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands.”  Hebrews 1:10.

As Christ was about to die on the cross, he cried out: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”  Luke 23:46

We are given the security of the Lord’s unconditional love and of our eternal salvation with the picture painted at Isaiah 49:14-16 where Israel fears its God has forgotten it, but we are taught that God’s love is stronger and superior even than a woman for her infant child:  

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me.”

And Jesus tells us of the security of the unfailing, irreversible, and unchanging grace of the Lord for His people: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.  My Father, which gave them to me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.   I and my Father are one.”    John 10:27-30.

I cannot think of my dad’s hands without thinking of the security the Lord provides to us symbolic through the use of His hands.  Even the old gospel song, a favorite of my mother’s, gives us the security of  “the Touch of the Master’s Hand” and the comfort and security of feeling the touch of the Lord’s hand during a trying time.