Savor the Handprints

 

There was a time in my life when as soon as I noticed any handprints on the windows or glass doors in our home that I quickly grabbed the Windex bottle and promptly cleaned them off.  After all, there’s not a mother alive that enjoys seeing kids smear their handprints all over clear shiny glass, right?  But as I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed that my standards have loosened regarding all of the smudges I see left behind.  I knew something strange was happening to me several months ago when my sister and three of her kids stayed at our home.  Their youngest little daughter was about 18 months old at the time and she really seemed to enjoy playing peek a boo next to our glass French doors.  After they left to go home, I was cleaning up around the house and distinctly remember walking past the doors where my sweet little niece had been playing.  It brought me joy to discover that her handprints were all over the glass.  My heart was warmed so much that a little part of her still remained for me to enjoy that I couldn’t bring myself to clean the smudges off.  What in the world was happening to me?
 
I truly believe at that very moment that God was revealing to me one of His tiniest blessings to savor. It was sad for me to realize that I’d missed out on “seeing” those handprints as special occurrences over the years as our kids were growing up.  When it comes to our spiritual lives, many times we’re totally blinded to the amazing handprints that God lovingly leaves behind for us to enjoy. Often we may only notice the more substantial blessings He bestows on us and tend to overlook the tiny details He has orchestrated together for our good and for His glory.  No matter what stage in life we may be going through, it’s never too late for us to finally open our eyes to God’s divine handprints all around us.

As my husband and I are nearing our 24^th wedding anniversary this next month, I recently revisited in my mind all of the amazing details of how God brought us together almost a quarter of a century ago.  I look back and marvel at how all of the pieces of our love story fit perfectly together, just as if it had all been planned by a sovereign Creator.  Here are some of the interesting details of how God began to knit our lives together years before we even met.

1)  In the spring of 1987 at the Youth Conference at Faith Baptist Bible College, Richard recalls seeing me because I attended the youth banquet with one of his friends.  I was sixteen years old.

2)  In the spring of 1988, as a senior in high school attending the Youth Conference once again, I noticed Richard for the first time and almost fainted because he was extremely handsome and wore a suit!  I found out he was actually a Youth Pastor who had brought his teen group to attend the conference as well.

3)  In the fall of 1988, my freshman year at Faith, I briefly dated a nice young man who I found out was one of the teens in Richard’s youth group the year before.  At Faith’s college break, this guy went back home and told his Youth Pastor Richard all about me and thought he had found his wife already.

4)  I became very close to my resident advisor in the dorms who was giving me special insight on Richard because she had actually dated him right before me.

5)  I’d been writing letters to a guy in high school who I later found out was a friend of Richard’s as they grew up in the same area in Nebraska.  This young man was able to give Richard special insight on what kind of person I was.

6)  On November 1^st, 1988, Richard’s friend that had been writing me finally introduced Richard and me in the college cafeteria.  That same guy drove me two hours to go on my first date with Richard and was our chaperone for the weekend.  Of course we included him in some of our special wedding photos 8 months later.

7)  When I gave Richard my family’s address back home where I grew up, he thought it sounded very familiar.  It turned out that he had actually been sending letters to the girl that lived in my house long before I moved there, about 8 years earlier.  My bedroom was in the very room where she wrote her letters to MY future husband.  How many times does that happen?

8)  As a Youth Pastor, Richard had attended a conference in Indiana a few years before we met.  He thought my last name sounded familiar at the time when we were introduced.  He figured out that he had stayed at the very same home as my uncle during that conference.  Richard enjoyed visiting with my uncle and getting to know the family he’d eventually be marrying into.

Just in case you haven’t realized it yet, God cares about every microscopic detail about His children.  So much so that in Matthew 10:30 we are told, “And even the very hairs on our head are numbered.”  Our Creator knew each of us before we were even born and fashioned our bodies into existence.  Psalm 139:13 says, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  I absolutely love Psalm 34:8 which says, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good…” because our Amazing God is extremely good to us and gives us “exceedingly abundantly above ALL that we ask or think.”(Ephesians 3:20)  God deeply loves us and longs to bless us more than we can ever imagine.  He also greatly rewards those who delight in His goodness.  Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourselves also in the Lord: and He will give you the desires of your heart.”   We need to greatly praise and thank our sovereign God for all of the many ways He touches our lives with His divine handprints.

 If you desire to be truly blessed, I challenge you to take some time to recall all of the little details that God has pieced together in your life. God not only desires for us to see Him working in the more visible things, He also wants us to look close enough to notice the smaller handprints He leaves behind for our good.  We are to share these visible “handprints” with others and encourage them to look for God’s touches in their story as well.   I will never look at handprints the same as I once did and I’m learning to be more careful to savor them.  Now that I have been blessed to be called ‘Grandma’, I do believe I will cherish those tiny precious handprints in a way I never have before.  

 If you come to visit my home sometime, do not be surprised if you see some smudges and smears on my lower windows.  It only means that I’m taking the time to finally focus more fully on ALL of the little blessings my heavenly Father has given me.  How about you?  Do you stop and take the time to savor the handprints God has left behind on your life?  Too many times we are quick to rush over and wipe the smudges clean without giving thought to taking delight in the very One who put them there.  God is unfathomably good!