Hi friends!

If you don’t know this about me, I love babies.

My family can attest that I will spontaneously blurt out, “I just love babies,” and one of my favorite things is serving in children’s ministry.

However, some Sundays back, I got a bit of a scare because one of my little buddies (he LOVES to read–which, you know, same) arrived with a bruise on his forehead.

His mama handed him to me and said,

“He has a concussion.”

At the look on my face, she quickly added, “He’s fine! But the doctor said to avoid bumping his head.”

I nodded, reinforcing my grip. “Gotcha! No bumping his head.”

I thought it would be easy peasy because he’s usually a very chill kid.

I mean, the week before he’d been totally content to sit on my lap and read about Jesus and Gerald the Giraffe.

Not so with a concussion.

Apparently, in under twos, a concussion can cause hyper-activity, and *eh-hem* yes.

The world = his jungle gym.

It was as if he was bound and determined to concuss himself all over again, and after I had to dive to keep him from whacking his head rather spectacularly against the kitchen playset when he decided the giraffe tricycle he was riding would be loads more fun if he rode it parallel to the floor, I made the executive decision to just hold him.

We sang and read.

He ate his snack.

And I thought we’d made it.

Service dismissed, and parents started coming to pick up their kids.

I put him down to airlift another adorable little one to her parents, when,

THUNK!

Friends…

When I tell you I just knew.

I turned around, and sure enough, in the melee of littles trying to storm the barricade to get to their parents, he’d fallen back and bonked his head against the wall.

Y’all.

I was like Yao:

PTL, he was okay, but when I say the last thing I want is for anything like that to ever happen again (lest I have a heart attack), I mean it.

And yet, I can’t guarantee it won’t.

In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it will.

It stinks, friends!

But it’s been my studied observation that at some point (or many) we all let someone, be it a friend, a family member, and/or a toddler, slip through our fingertips.

And if you haven’t yet been the Yao who lost your grip, you’ve almost definitely been the one someone else let slip.

Hopefully not off a Mongolian cliff or when you already had a concussion, but if dropping someone else is a cringingly common feat, being dropped–i.e. expecting a steadying hand only to fall through a whole lot of nothingness (maybe some hot air)–is an even more universal experience.

And I want to talk about it.

Specifically, I want to talk about why it is that our hands, despite our very best intentions, are notoriously unreliable instruments when it comes to supporting others and/or being supported.

As best I see it, their limitations are threefold:

1. They’re not omnipresent
2. They’re not omnipotent
3. They’re not permanent

That’s what we’re gonna talk about today.

Let’s roll 🙂

Hand Limitation #1: Not Omnipresent

This is the most obvious one!

Because as much as we may wish otherwise, our hands can’t be everywhere at once.

In fact, there are frequently times (e.g. when corralling babies) when our hands are in both totally legitimate and mutually exclusive demand.

To support one party, another has to be left unattended.

There’s a great example of this in the opening scene of the 2009 Star Trek movie when Captain George Kirk’s wife is giving birth and he’s not there to hold her hand because the ship’s autopilot was destroyed and he’s gotta personally kamikaze it.

He couldn’t be on board the escape shuttle with his laboring wife and stop the bad guys.

He had to pick.

And as a result, his wife became a widow and his child grew up fatherless.

🙁

Here’s the thing, friends.

He couldn’t be there for them–not because he didn’t want to be–but because while the mind might’ve been willing, the flesh had a finite and localized reach.

As far as I can see, that’s a perennial problem when it comes to offering and receiving support in times of need.

We can’t be there for everybody, nor can we expect that we are always going to be the priority when someone else has to make a plan about whether or not they can lend us a hand.

However!

Let’s say the wanted hands are on the scene.

We’ve still got to face the fact that willing AND present hands can get fatigued.

Hand Limitation #2: Not Omnipotent

This second limitation is one I feel in my bones.

Literally.

Because between a family history of osteoporosis and maxing out at 5’3″, I’m not a very robust human being, and while I know that some girls are into lifting heavy, I prefer to stick with bags of half-priced books and groceries.

As such, I frequently find myself in the position of thinking

“The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.“

E.g. if a jar ever needs opening, nine times at of ten, my attempt will be followed by

“Daaaaaad, I’m having a weaker vessel moment!”

Hands present?

Check!

Hands able?

Eh…

That being said!

I would contend that even the most formidable people don’t have all-powerful hands.

Take this scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

It’s right in the beginning (so no spoilers!) when Harry’s awful Aunt Marge comes to visit.

The general gist is she viciously insults Harry’s late parents, and he, in turn, turns her into a human blimp.

Fortunately for Aunt Marge, her brother, Harry’s Uncle Vernon is there to grab her hands.

Here, it’s relevant to stress that Uncle Vernon is a seriously husky (i.e. not 5 foot 3 with brittle bone disease).

AND YET.

Despite his prodigious amount of mass, his hands weren’t up to the task of hauling Marge back.

And presented with the options of either holding on and getting aerially towed or letting go, Uncle Vernon elects to let his sister fly solo.

Now, I think that’s a fascinating and very typical shift.

Actually, it’s probably the only time in the whole series apart from when Uncle Vernon says, “FINE day Sunday” where I relate to him.

Because, like Uncle Vernon, I–and I suspect most people–have been in situations where we start out genuinely wanting to lend a hand to whoever’s in need, but when we see that we’ve *eh-hem* overestimated our abilities, we just…

Release.

In such instances, the mind becomes unwilling because the flesh (both ours and theirs) is weak.

In John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars, there’s a scene where a friend of the protagonist laments how his girlfriend dumped him right before a surgery that would remove his cancerous (and only remaining) eyeball.

“She said she couldn’t handle it,” he told me. “I’m about to lose my eyesight and she can’t handle it… I kept saying ‘always’ to her today, ‘always always always,’ and she just kept talking over me and not saying it back. It was like I was already gone, you know? ‘Always’ was a promise! How can you just break the promise?'”

‘Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,’ I said.”

Amen. Amen.

It stinks, friends, but I think we often don’t understand how fatigued our promised hands can get.

Or (and maybe this is more likely) we don’t want to admit that we’re limited and can’t always (or often) handle whatever “it” is–no matter our intentions.

And I get it.

Impotence is not a pleasant consideration.

Less still is death.

And yet!

We’ve gots to talk about it.

Hand Limitation #3: Not Permanent

Alright, friends!

We’ve come to the third and final limitation that must be addressed.

And it’s our hands’ impermanence.

Because, even if you’ve got willing, present, and powerful hands, the support they’ll be able to provide is NOT going to be permanent.

A great illustration of this occurs at the close of James Cameron’s Titanic when star-crossed lovers Rose and Jack find themselves floating on a door in the freezing sea, hoping to be rescued ASAP.

Now, neither Rose nor Jack are weaklings. Hitherto, both demonstrated a commendable amount of chutzpah and grit, even wielding an ax when the situation called for it.

But they are now contending with water that is 28 degrees, and the only thing left for them to do is hold hands and freeze.

To her credit, Rose holds on until the end.

But when she realizes that Jack has become a personcicle, she fully breaks his frozen hand off her wrist.

In that instance, “I’ll never let go” had a fairly conspicuous time limit.

Thus, in the end, neither Rose nor Jack’s hands are permanent.

But that motif is 100% not confined to the Titanic.

In fact!

The best artistic representation of it that I’ve ever seen or heard is Johnny Cash’s rendition of the Nine Inch Nails’ song “Hurt.“

For starters, the music video is absolutely steeped in vanitas imagery, which, fun fact, I learned about in middle school art history.

Suffice to say, it stuck with me 🙂

But if you just google it, the style is described as portraying “the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death,” which is usually accomplished by juxtaposing objects of luxury and decay while interspersing plenty of memento moris.

Skulls and rotting food feature heavily.

Now, while Mr. Cash left the skulls aside, a person would be hard-pressed to miss his emphasis on life’s transience, pleasure’s futility, and death’s certainty when watching “Hurt.”

However!

Even if those don’t come through visually, all you’ve got to do is listen to the words!

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

Those lines get me every time.

Because I feel like they so perfectly capture my life!

I will let you down. I will make you hurt.

As far as I’m concerned, those are universal words.

Because nobody I’ve ever met–myself very much included–is all-present, all-powerful, and permanent.

Well.

None but One, that is 🙂

His name is Jesus.

He is the best–the best–the best.

Because unlike even the MOST supportive family and friends whose helping hands are hindered by proximity, weakness, and death, Jesus actually does go with us always, He never faints or grows weary, and He exists from eternity to eternity.

He is the Alpha and the Omega.

The beginning and the End.

Omnipresent. Omnipotent. Permanent.

That’s Him.

And if you don’t know Jesus, it would be my JOY to introduce you to Him.

Because, and I speak from personal experience, no matter how tenuous your grip, He’s never, ever going to let you slip.

When I fear my faith will fail
Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail
He will hold me fast

I could never keep my hold
Through life’s fearful path
For my love is often cold
He must hold me fast

He will hold me fast
He will hold me fast
For my Savior loves me so
He will hold me fast