Hand in Hand

This writing is dedicated to my children and grandchildren. You will understand more as you read.

Most of us who are adults, over twenty-five, have children. There are times when you hug them, hold them, feed them, rock them to sleep and change their diapers. I have written poems for both of my children as the words came to me as I was doing the “middle of the night feeding”. The poems were questions about who these little people were going to become. I wrote of how I would or could have an affect on their lives; but, most of all how they would show me who I really was. Could I love them enough to say “No”? I wanted them to be safe and I would do anything and everything to protect them. They needed to know at an early age, that dad was going to be there.

Now to the hand holding….

When my kids were four to eight or ten, when we would go to the grocery store or shopping, we would park the car, get them out of their seats and hold their hands. Or venture across the parking lot was the first adventure. They had been sitting and wanted to get out and run. It was always stated that, “When we go across the parking lot, we always hold hands.”

Why did we do that? Well, by being adults and older, we knew what might happen. We could see more, because their eyes were at bumper of fender height. We understood the dangers “out there”.

Their hands, by being smaller, could not grasp our hands. So the finger method was used. They held our index finger and we held their hand and sometimes wrist. I’m not sure what they remember about those kind of things, but it comes out when I see them hold their kid’s hands in the same manner.

I write that to say this….

Hand holding, from God’s perspective is much the same. We think we have a good hold on God’s hand. We love Him and trust Him and sometimes, hold on for dear life. If that last phrase sounds funny, that means, I’m getting old; it’s a phrase that comes from “way back”. What we don’t realize is that, God has a stronger grip on us than we have on Him. We have His finger, but He has our whole hand and sometimes wrist in His grasp. When things are good He will loosen Hid grip and let us run freely. When danger comes, He can “whip us around and move us to a place of safety”. He is “bigger” and can see more than we can. He knows and is able to sense danger better than we can. It becomes more obvious each day that He controls my life. And that, not in a negative way, He loves me so much He sometimes says, “No”.

Following the Shepherd,
Ron