open hands...empty hands?

I have been thinking a lot lately about how blessed we are as a society.

I have mentioned this a few times lately…and I don’t want to seem obsessed, it’s just something I really enjoy. I have been rereading the Anne of Green Gables series again. There is something about springtime that makes me need to reacquaint myself with those “old friends”.

As I swung in my hammock and read the words of Anne of Windy Poplars the other day, a line struck me.  Anne was writing a letter, to Gilbert of course, recollecting a particular dining experience she had had at the wealthiest home in the small town of Sommerside, Maplehurst. The line that struck me was one in which she was describing the grandeur of the whole affair and highlighted the fact that, “the water was cold.”

Gun to my head, if I had to say my very favorite thing to drink, it’s ice water.  I LOVE cold, cold water. I keep to water bottles with me most days at work, one on my desk that I am drinking from and one in the refrigerator getting nice and cold for me to drink. Today, I lost a bottle on an excursion with a client and though I still had another I went immediately and replaced it. It I hadn’t, I would have been forced to drink warm water.

As I was reading, I came across something else that jumped out to me. Anne was talking to Gilbert once again about her mixed emotions for Foxes Book of Martyrs. She says, “I don’t like reading about the martyrs because they always make me feel petty and ashamed…ashamed to admit I hate to get out of bed on frosty morning and shrink from visits to the dentist.”

These couple of thoughts set my mind down the railway of a deep thought.

I take so much for granted.

As I have thought of living my life with open hands so much recently, It has been with the expectations that the Lord will fill those hands with SOMETHING.

But what if He doesn’t? What if He says no? What if He asks for everything?

What if my open hands, become simply, empty hands?

There are many people who have very little to speak of in their life, like people who never get to drink cold water. I have been so pampered and cared for all the days of my life, what id Jesus asks for it all and gives nothing back?

Would He do that? Is that even possible?

The answer is, He wouldn’t and it’s not.

There are many people out there who would have you believe that following Christ means you will be “BLESSED”! It’s true, you will be, but rarely is it in the type of blessing this world tells us is good.

The reason our open hands may seem empty but never truly are is that the more we let go of, the more He can fill our hands with Himself. THAT is far beyond the value of any blessing this world has to offer.

There is a song that I love. It’s obscure and old but there are days when the words of the chorus dance through my head. It’s the story of a woman who has next to nothing in her life. It says:

Did not catch her name
Did not catch her tears
It hit me like a train
When her story hit my ears
Mother of eight sons
Father off to war
Got no home address
Just bricks on a dirt floor
Jesus is all I need

Tiny plot of land
Corn stored up in piles
Years it doesn't rain
They just stay hungry for a while
No fatted calf to kill
She made a feast of cuy and corn
She said, "Who else knew my name
Before the day that I was born?
Jesus is all I need
Jesus is all I need. "

She bragged about her boys
How they're growin' into men
How they learned to praise the Lord
Old Style Ecuadorian
To buy the new guitar
They had to sell the swine
Said, "My boys go to school on a foreign angel's dime.
This world calls me poor
I bore my babies on this floor
He always provides
Sure as the sun will rise.
So I'll sing Him songs of praise
'Cause I know He'll keep me in His gaze. "

Rain poured from the sky
We raced back to the van
There were tears in the eyes
Of this poor, forgetful man
Mother of eight sons
She knows the peace of God
Lord, help me learn to lean
On thy staff and thy rod
Jesus is all I need
Jesus is all I need

Will I say the same? Is Jesus all I need?

When I life my hands up before the Lord and open the to Him am I content to only receive more of Him?

I want to be.


I want to see hands that are open and filled to the brim with a more abundant love than I can ever begin to imagine. 


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