In remembering my little babe’s hands, I recall ten tiny fingers on smooth dimpled hands.  These little fingers would grasp tightly to mine and in an instant he took hold of my heart.

Each day, as he grew, those hands became bruised and scuffed as he played with the other children.  As he learned his step-dad’s occupation they became calloused and blistered, but he seemed to enjoy the feel of the wood and being able to form it into something.

Later I would see those same hands touch others and heal them of all kinds of ailments and maladies.  He turned water into wine, calmed an angry sea, wash his followers’ feet.

He was my son, but he now had to suffer at the hands of his enemies.  I cringed as the cat- of-nine tails slashed the skin from his back, exposing muscle and tendons.   My heart ached as they pierced those sweet hands with the iron spikes.  I can’t express my feelings seeing his arms extended and hands reaching out as far as they could.  As the blood fell and gnats and flies surrounded him, my heart could think of nothing but the unrighteous death he had to suffer to take away the sin of the world.  He no longer belonged to me alone.

He died.  His pain was over, but my heart had been pierced right along with him.