Have you ever taken a good and critical look at your own hands and thought to yourself: “I have got beautiful hands!”?
Throughout history, the human body has been a magnificent peace of art, and still is, to a lot of people; to the painters, the sculptors, and photographers, to the doctors, the scientists and surgeons, and also to all those who believe in a Creator. But most of all, the body is magnificent to all the mums and dads who never get tired of gazing at their tiny, perfect, brand new babies.
What is the age-old fascination with the human body? Some are attracted to the eyes, which are classed as the “windows of the soul”. Others are totally stunned by the body’s marvelous shape. Again others enjoy immensely to venture into the human mind, and some have a foot fetish. Who can blame them?
Apart from believing that the whole package is a magnificent piece of art, I find the hands most interesting and fascinating. Hands can tell stories about yourself, and better still, they can reveal some of your secrets which you would rather keep to yourself sometimes.
I knew a 63 year old lady who had numerous facelifts. When she got out of bed in the morning she looked her age, but at lunchtime, after spending hours in front of the mirror to make herself respectable for the public, she was ready to face the world confidently. You could have almost believed to see a 35 year old model stepping out into the world, because she dressed and walked accordingly. But the secret of her age was given away by her hands. Hands usually don’t lie.
We have 54 bones in our hands alone, which makes them the most flexible part of our body. In fact, they are flexible enough to “speak” a language of their own.
Deaf people have no problem expressing themselves or communicating with each other in sign language, they are speaking quite fluently – with their hands.
But this is not the only language hands can speak. Sometimes in the greatest time of need, when disaster strikes, when words become meaningless and totally powerless, when nothing that is said makes any sense any more, that is the time when the hands step in to speak; through touch and embrace, through holding a hand to stop it from trembling, to comfort and to reassure. This language is used and understood internationally. Although some countries use it more than others. Aren’t our hand a wonderful creation? There is so much more to our hands than just to be pampered or worked with.
When I was a 7 year old girl, my sister read a story to me which made such a deep impression on my life that I will never forget it as long as I live. The story was about a little girl who, after becoming an orphan, had a hard time adapting to her new and cold environment in an orphanage home. All she had left was her older sister. She was her strength, her pride, her joy, she was her life. Tragically, her older sister got leukemia, and unfortunately her body was too week to fight it.
At the funeral, this little girl looked into the open coffin, gently placed the cold hands of her sister on her own and stroked them lovingly, as lovingly as she knew how to. Then she whispered softly: “She has got beautiful, beautiful hands.” Later on she was asked: “Why did you say she has beautiful hands, your sister was pretty all over?” The little girl said with a gentle voice: “Because her hands never hurt me!”
What makes hands beautiful? Is it the size, the shape, the skin texture, the youthfulness, or the flexibility? People may be born with pretty hands, but our hands need to be trained to become “beautiful”. Beautiful hands are directly connected to the heart.
Train your own hands, if they are not beautiful already. Train your children’s hands. Train your grand-children’s hands. This world is in a desperate need of beautiful hands. Hands that never hurt, hands that speak the language of love, hands that are willing and ready to sustain, to support, to elevate, and to heal.
Before going to bed tonight, try to find a quiet moment for yourself to take a good and critical look at your own hands, to honestly answer yourself the question: “Do I have beautiful hands?”
Written by Sonja Baumung
