My hands are so dry and cut up, the skin on my fingertips is getting rough... Dry and rough from washing dishes after cooking dinner; changing countless diapers, then washing my hands right after; from playing outside in the cold, or hanging up Christmas lights while praying I don't die. They're dry from wiping down tables covered in glitter or finger paint, and then washing my hands again. Dry from picking up mysteriously moist pieces of old food hidden in the corners of our dining room, thrown from a chubby hand belonging to the high chair-eater in the family (on a long day, sometimes that's me, minus the chubby hand) and WASHING MY HANDS AGAIN. Dry from putting dirty laundry in the washer then needing to prepare lunch, and washing my hands yet again. I've never washed my hands so much. I promise, I don't wash them unless I truly have to. Ironically, they are also dry from drying so many tears.
As a mom, you get your hands dirty a lot; you deal with a lot of germs. Your kids get sick a lot as it is, so you try to limit the germs that YOU can at least avoid spreading. (Because someone is going to lick the cart handles at the grocery store or pick at old gum under a restaurant dining table, so you want to set a good example of how to stay healthy.)
I still get mistaken for a middle schooler. I'm 29 but look about 16 when I'm actually trying to look older. I'm finally at a point in my life where I can appreciate that. But if you look at my hands, you'd think I was much older.
If you look at the hands of an artist or craftsman, they're usually pretty dirty and beat up. Look at the hands of a soldier. They're tough. But they tell their own story.
Earlier today, I was telling a friend that one of the most challenging things about motherhood is that it doesn't reap instant rewards. It doesn't matter how many child development books you read, you won't ace parenting with flying colors when you're put to the test. There aren't raises or bonuses, though the sound of two toddling sisters giggling while chasing each other around a certain glitter-filled dining room is worth more to me than any of that, of course. But you're the only one who knows when you've aced your test. You come out smiling after a tough playdate with more meltdowns than you could keep track of--you aced it. Heck, even if your teeth are just clenched and it looks like you're smiling, and you kept your cool, you still aced it. God is on your side, and you know it because you couldn't have come out of that scenario without a few prayers. He knows more than you think, just look at his hands.
He is the potter and we are the clay. He molds us with his scarred hands. The only model we have to follow regarding child-rearing is the relationship documented between God and his people, one involving sleepless prayerful nights, throwing dinners involving hundreds of guests without worrying about having enough, knowing someone better than they know themselves and loving them anyway, stinky feet-washing, taking the time out to heal others, performing miracles without expecting anything in return, and even a willingness to lay down one's own life.
Performing miracles without expecting anything in return sounds a whole lot like getting thru 40 weeks of pregnancy and topping it off with hours upon hours of labor. Or it can be something as simple as asking your 3 year old to explain their painting and listening, or successfully getting thru a day that started off with zero sleep. It's everything you do that leads up to the finished product--that is the miracle. Pregnancy isn't hard; it's just the sampler plate and a beautiful symbol of the whole process from start to finish: a labor of love, pun intended.
Sometimes it feels like God handed me this block of wood and he's expecting me to carve a masterpiece, when the only tool I have is a toothpick that's been chewed on by a teething one year old. It's like, I haven't even started and my hands already look like they belong to a grandma (no offense to the grandmas, your hands are the best). I guess I'm missing the point, then. These dry, rough, raw hands--they're part of my reward. Everything that has contributed to how they look is contributing to the finished product, and is changing me in the process, too, from the inside out. When they're moms asking me how I did it, I'll be looking at more than a block of wood (even if Mirabel still calls her sister blockhead, thanks to Charlie Brown), and they'll be looking at someone whose hands aren't the only things that have changed as a result of all that carving.
