Hold My Hand
The following blog is by Barbara Westburg.
Bright blue eyes. Curly golden hair. Hand waving. Two-year-old Valerie tottered down the sidewalk toward me as I sat on the front porch. “Gran’ma, hold my hand. Hold my hand, Gran’ma.” I did. Together we walked up and down, up and down, the sidewalk. Her tiny tender hand clasped in my worn wrinkled one. My heart melting and her feet skipping. This simple memory thirty-year-old memory is engraved in my brain.
Pastor R. D. Whalen related this incident. Bi-vocational pastor-plumber Jess Robinson was in a farmhouse doubled up under the kitchen sink repairing the pipes. All morning the little master of the family had been glued to his side. “Mister, what ya doin’?” “Mister, let me help ya.” “What’s that tool?”
By lunchtime Brother Robinson was more than ready for the sound of silence. To reach his pickup and his lunch, he had to cross a weedy field. As he waded through the weeds, he felt a presence beside him and heard a little voice, “Mister, will ya hold my hand? I can’t get through these weeds by myself.”
What a tangled weed patch we live in. Our grandchildren desperately need us to help them through it. Even though they may be miles away, we must hold up their hands daily in prayer. In many cases, grandparents are the link, perhaps the only link, connecting their grandchildren to their heavenly Father. Even when our hands are filled with this-and-that and so-many-other things, holding their hands must be a priority.
My role of holding my grandchildren’s hands as they crossed the street, jumped off the porch, and skipped down the sidewalk has changed. These days I hold up their hands in prayer, asking God to guide them through life’s sticky, twisted, ugly weeds.
Why after some thirty years do I remember Valerie running toward me saying, “Gran’ma, hold my hand”? Perhaps because I saw myself running to my heavenly Father crying, “Jesus, hold my hand. I can’t make it through these weeds by myself.”
“Hand in hand we walk each day,
Hand in hand along the way.
Walking thus I cannot stray,
Hand in hand with Jesus.”
(by L. D. Huffstutler)