Falling Summer rambles...

Lately, I've been thinking about my hands. How vain. No but really, I've realized that when it comes to everything that I love to do in life and in ways that I worship God, they all involve my hands. Whether it is playing the piano, writing, doing art, photography, lifting up my hands to God...my hands are at work.

I take lots of pride in my hands...I love looking at other people's hands too. I think hands say a lot about a person. My dad has really battered up hands because he's always working on something...yard work, building bird houses, planting seeds...and he never cares about the dirt under his nails or the scars he has accumulated from cuts and tool-mishaps. Artists always have dirty fingernails and pianists always have short fingernails. Bold women have bright red nail polish and young ladies have shades of pink. Whichever way one uses to present one's hands, I believe, directly relate to who they are.

I have never thanked God for my hands. I don't think I've ever really thanked Him for my sight, my ability to hear, to walk, to talk...all these things that I take for granted each day. On my hall itself, there is a blind student and another who had to take vocal rest a year ago. And each time I see them, I feel like I do not deserve all that I am capable of doing physically.

As the sun was setting yesterday, a thought came into my mind. What if one day, my hands were taken away? How would I worship God? What if my voice was taken from me? How would I sing? What if my sight was taken, where would I look to when I do not know the answers? I truly struggled with this thought because my whole being rests on the way I physically express myself. This is when I realized that Worship...not just the music aspect of it, but in its entirety,
Worship...is who I am. It is what I am made for.

Ever heard that we were made to worship God? That it is the one thing we were created for?

It has finally come clear to me...that the most important thing in my life is to Worship God. Now, I'm sure I would run into a lot of challenges had I not a physical way of worshipping God, but at the same time, my very essence, who I am...should be consumed with worship. It was comforting to know that God has taken me away from the worries of how I would get by in this world without my senses, to how I would live without being able to worship Him. My life would be so empty and my cause, pointless. I would in essence, be without hope...without a purpose to live.

Even without my hands, without sight or voice...my heart still beats to worship. Each day, I am completely consumed with thoughts of worshipping God...every opportunity to sing, to dance, to write...overflows from this heart, and it will continue to do so, regardless of physical abilities. It makes sense that our hearts are so drawn to God because part of Him is in us and the whole purpose of our hearts, is for Him.

Without realizing this, all we feel is longing and we have no idea what we are longing for. In pain we do not understand what we are trying to run away from or run towards...but it is our hearts that are crying out to be whole with our Maker. In essence it is realizing that we are nothing...and we need something...someone...God...


This is worship.