My dad had massive, callused hands. If he tightened a nut with his hands, you didn’t need a wrench. When my dad was a young boy, he and his dad built their house (probably 90 years ago – still occupied in Carlisle, AR) with their hands. Dad could build whatever he needed out of wood or steel and repair the farm equipment, all with his hands.

Several times I witnessed my dad experience what many people would have accepted as defeat. Not my dad. Like the new plant bursting through the soil, my dad’s hands were the first sign he was not defeated.

When he was in his sixties, he experienced a major heart attack. This resulted in him losing the farm and selling his equipment. I remember him sitting quietly in his chair rubbing his hands as if to return life to them. Now that I think about it, he was calling life back into his hands for “what’s next?”

A year or so later dad went to work at a rice elevator (where farmers take their harvest to sell). One of the augers had stopped so dad climbed up the 20-foot ladder to unstop the auger. I remember him telling me when the auger became unstuck it caught his hand and was about to pull him into what would have been his death. He was able to pull free leaving part of his thumb with his shredded fingers. He climbed down the ladder and was taken to the doctor. The first doctor told him he could not save his hand but a plastic surgeon in Greenville could do a live skin craft by sewing his hand to his chest. Months later and many surgeries later, dad had a right hand. To someone who didn’t know the story it looked gnarly. He could not fully open his right hand. His thumb was a nub, and he had hair on the inside of his fingers from the live skin graft to his chest. To me… it was a medal of honor.

He would go on to raise 15 acres of the best tomatoes, make incredible woodcraft toys, desks, chairs, and anything else you could ask for with his hands. He found a way to use his hands, and he never complained… never. But most of all he used that beat-up hand to love my mother and his family unashamedly.

 This morning as I woke God put this story on my heart along with this verse from Genesis 2:7

“Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” Think about it. God “FORMED” us. It’s personal for Him. One of the Principles of anything made by hand is that whatever it is, it’s personal & unique. We are not massed produced. He didn’t make us with a cookie cutter. Each one of us has been handled by our Creator.

Like witnessing my dad’s quiet labor of love, I have found God’s labor of love in His Word. It is when I started reading His Word to know and understand Him that it became His Living Word. One man responded to me after I had invited him to join our Bible Study Fellowship group, “It’s hell fire & brimstone, right?” I responded, “There is that, but there is much more.” The Bible reveals God’s heart, His love for us through His Way…His Plan. And if we choose His Way then He tells us in Deuteronomy 5:16, “that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

With His Mighty & Loving hands God formed us. With that thought consider David’s plea, “Keep me as the apple of Your eye; Hide me under the shadow of Your wings.”  Psalm 17:8.