Handprint

“Conan Hand Turkey – Happy Thanksgiving”, Chapel Hill, NC, Photo by bnilsen, Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/bnilsen/5206109741/ (CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic)

Parents with young children will recognize handprint art. The outline of a child’s hand is magically transformed into a brightly colored turkey, butterfly or fish. The result is sure to bring a smile – precious for having forever captured a moment in the life of a beloved child.

The world is filled with God’s handprints, clues to His existence. There are arguments in God’s favor based on First Cause, fulfilled prophecy, the improbability of life, design v. random chance, personal experience, and more.

But arguments to the contrary can be made, as well, some of them powerful. Few things, for instance, touch us so deeply as the loss of a child. Needing to blame someone, we cry out to God in our grief. May reject Him entirely.

It is up to us to sift through the evidence.

“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4: 19).

Lord God, we see Your handprint everywhere. In the dawn sky, painted afresh each morning; in the flight of a hawk, upheld by grace; in the curve of an oak, stretching every leaf and fiber upward.

You surround us with beauty and still we remain blind. Hardship and pain so easily threaten our feeble existence, cloud our vision, and shake our fragile faith. Yet You are everything to us, Father. You supply our every need.

You gave Your own Son for our salvation, our consolation when we are overcome by grief. We thank You for Your love, and for the blessing of time spent with loved ones, however brief. May our lives reflect Your handprint till we are reunited in eternity with those lost to us here.

We trust You in this and all things.

Amen

READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse  http://www.avoicereclaimed