Taken You By The Hand

“I have taken you by the hand and kept you” Isaiah 42:6 

One of the joys of my motherhood was the moment the children started walking. Not because of the relief to my arms from carrying them everywhere, but because we had entered into the stage of me taking them by the hand. Admittedly, I’m a woman who arrived late to the scene of motherhood. Before birthing my children, on occasion, I’d seen mothers take their children by the hand and drag them along, yank them, and use their size to force movement. I always felt terrible for those children who were not experiencing the gentleness of the hand.

When Theron-Howard and Cecelia started walking, even those baby steps, just one of my fingers felt like an entire hand for them. They didn’t know they only had my finger, but I knew I had their whole hand. It was pure joy for me. I held their hand on playgrounds. I held their hand when walking them into their very first classroom as I introduced them to their teacher. When my children reached for the hand of their first teacher, for a split moment, they were holding both of us. 

Now, as my son is graduating from high school, and my daughter is the athlete who enjoys holding onto balance beams and pole vaults, we still hold hands, only the size of hands has switched. Looking at this photo on his prom night, you can see that my hands are now the smallest hands in the house, yet my children always find comfort in holding my hand. They feel kept much as I feel kept by being in the hand of God. 

A few years ago, while entering a darkness that I’d never known, God had one message for me, “Cecelia, you are in my hands.” I’ve learned so many things about what it really means to be in God’s hand and to be kept by the Lord. If God experiences a fraction of the joy that I feel when taking my children by the hand, then these past few years have been a sheer delight for the Lord. When the “Tempest“ would rage, when the “billows” would roll, I could steady myself by reminding myself of what God told me at the beginning of this darkness. 

Cecelia, you are in my hands. 

While being in God’s hands, during such darkness, I had a lesson to learn. It was the lesson of restraint. If you’ve ever seen children let go of their parent’s hand and run after something of interest, then you know what I mean by restraint. God had assured me that I was being kept, but I had to exercise restraint to stay in God’s hand daily. It was difficult for many days. Many days! I didn’t believe I knew a better way of being kept, it was just difficult not to pull away from the Lord’s hand and run after any number of distractions. God had taken me by the hand, and I had chosen daily to stay in God’s hand. What a wise choice that has turned out to be for me and my future. 

To the person who reads this post and then sees two people holding hands, remember that when God takes you by the hand, it is a safe place. Your responsibility will be to remain there and not pull yourself away. 

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