The Fullness of Empty Hands

It was a slow subtraction, a stealthy stripping away.

And it started small.

First, I noticed that I barely had time to spend with the piano and flute.

Then, that I wasn’t painting as regularly.

Next, I found that my writing had gone from daily to weekly to monthly (journalling doesn’t count). I simply couldn’t carve out the time or the emotional energy.

At least I was still running, I told myself. Maybe this will be my season for a marathon.

Naturally, I ended up messing with my back and had to take a month off.

It’s funny how we see ourselves, the identities we name. I continued to be a wife and a mother and a homeschooler and a military spouse—but those were all relational identities. I had lost or let go of or been stripped of almost all the things that told me who I was on my own, what I had to offer that was just Marian.

During this time, I found myself grateful for the kindness of Scripture that reminded me of the deeper truths: I am a child of God. I am beloved. I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Even when I cannot do the things that make me feel like me. Even when I feel like I have nothing to offer.

I’ve found myself thinking, lately, of the end of Little Women when Professor Bhaer says to Jo, '“But I have nothing to give you! My hands are empty!” Full disclosure, its my least favorite part of the Winona Ryder movie (which I religiously watch every year on my birthday), because Winona makes that last line, “Not empty now,” so cringe-worthy in its sappiness, but it is hitting different this year.

I look at myself these days and it’s hard not to ask what I even have to give. My hands are empty of the things I think make me count. Who am I when I am no longer creating, when I am only doing what it takes to survive? What do I have to offer those around me? What do I have to offer to God?

My hands are empty.

And yet, somehow, the God of the universe slips His hands into mine and says, “They’re not empty now.” He doesn’t mind my lack of doing. He can do all of the things Himself. He simply wants to be with me and to have me enjoy being with Him.

The stripping away of everything else exposes the heart of God for me, a heart that wants to bless me with His presence.

College Marian was just a baby.

We’re familiar with Job’s words, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” and often that taking away hurts.

It hurts when we lose jobs and pregnancies and homes and loves and identities. It hurts to hold out our empty hands and feel the weight of the nothingness within them pressing us down until we could sink into the ground and hide our faces in the mud.

We can only say the second part of those famous lines, “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” if we know that our empty hands are not actually empty because they are filled with the strengthening clasp of God’s grip.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away—our hands are empty; we have nothing left to offer.

Blessed be the name of the Lord—our hands are not empty now…or ever.

Seasons come and go. Strengths wax and wane. The things we think matter are stripped away so that we can see God’s exposed heart, and then sometimes what was taken away is given back to us again. And sometimes not. But in our empty hands is the possibility of all the fullness of God.