I’ll confess. Scrapbooking isn’t my favorite thing. But as I sort through a shoebox of old photos, making a memory book for my 12th-grade son, I find a picture that floods my heart with love.
It’s a close-up of Grant.
We’re at the beach.
He’s restful.
And around his sweet face are my husband’s hands.
The memory of the day comes quickly. I can almost feel the gentle rays of the late-day sun. The warm sand. The cold water on my feet as it pressed, in an easy rhythm, toward land.
Lonny and I had just two sons at the time, and they’d played all afternoon. They’d built castles, inspired by Cair Paravel of Narnia (we read a lot of C. S. Lewis back then) that piped the quiet, evening shore.
The boys had spent their energy and were still, and I’d snapped the picture because I wanted to capture the tenderness of a father’s touch.
I wanted to remember this precious, beautiful thing.
As I admire this photo, I recognize that there are times in my life when I deliberately need to feel the gentle hands of my Father in heaven.
There are times that I need to feel His tenderness. Times I need to be touched with His hands of comfort. Times I need to feel the presence of the hands that provide for me from His glorious, abundant riches.
There are times when I need to feel protected and times when I need to remember that I’m His child, and I can just rest and enjoy the privilege of being the object of His affection.
But I need to slow down enough to savor it.
I need to be like Grant, to be still, and allow myself to be held in the beauty of my Father’s love.
I clip the edges of the photo round and think about where I’ll place it in my scrapbook. Then I decide differently. I’m going to slip the picture into a frame.
It’s a sweet memory.
And a precious reminder.
Sweet blessings flow when I take the time to be touched by the hands that made me.
There’s peace and rest in the Father’s hands.
