Your Hands Were Made for Unusual Miracles

I look down at my hands and see small calluses on my palms from years of using cleaning products without gloves. I see the story of sunshine and recall teenage summer days without the slightest consideration for sunscreen. I reminisce forty-three years worth of life on these hands, and I sit lost in thought wondering how much I might have wasted them.

These days, my hands spend a lot of time turning pages in my Bible. I need to feel the crinkle of thin paper as I search scripture. Over the weekend, I was reading about Paul's missionary journeys and I came across this:

Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul...

-Acts 19:11

Unusual miracles. I just can't get those two words out of my head. God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul. And now as I look down at the hands I own; the hands God gave me, I wonder if He might consider doing the same through these callused, sun soaked hands as He did through Paul's. I want these hands to work unusual miracles in whatever way that might mean for my life. I want to be used.

We seem to get carried away with the idea that unusual miracles means curing cancer or giving the blind sight, but I think God gives us power and opportunities to perform unusual miracles of which we are completely unaware.

I consider my hands as they make dinner for my family, caress my children's heads as I pray for them, hold my husband's hand as we lie in bed. I think of typing these letters to you and holding the microphone at church as I use my voice to minister. My fingers touch the piano and I can't help but wonder if my song could be praise enough to move mountains without my knowledge.

Through it all, I've come to the conclusion that we are ALL living miracles created by a living God who desperately wants to use us. I think of His willingness to breathe life and make us whole while giving us hands to love, live, honor, respect, and pray. I believe we make choices everyday with our hands that cause unusual miracles. And, maybe it's not years of sunshine on my hands. Maybe it's years of God's glory showing in the form of lines communicating the broken and beautiful of everyday. Maybe it's not age as much as it's His handiwork.

I'm no one special. I would love to stand on my soapbox and tell you that in the name of Jesus I would be willing and able to do what the apostle Paul did. But, friend, I can't begin to identify with his trials and tribulations, and I'm not going to pretend I can. What I will say is that I want to be like that. I want to be brave enough, bold enough, eager enough, obedient enough. And most of all, I want my hands to bring God glory. However, I know I can only do that by being willing enough to say yes.

From now on, I'm going to work on waking up every morning with hands stretched in obedience and surrender to whatever He wants to use them for. I've never been more excited about serving the God who specializes in unusual miracles!

May we each serve the God of unusual miracles as He tells His story through our lives, may we feel the peace that comes from knowing we have opportunity to be His hands, and may we gaze at our own hands in awe of His capability to work in and through our lives.

You're worth more than you know, and God can do more through your hands than you ever thought possible!

Love,

Jennifer

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