Today's topic Hands.  That's right hands.

I have been thinking about my hands lately.  How old they look compared to the rest of me.  They are dried and cracked and my nails break all the time.  I know a lot of women with a similar problem.  It has come to my attention that the reason they look so old so quickly is because I use them so much.  I use them, then I wash them over and over again all the time.  Oh, I try to stop time with creams and lotions. For a while I was self conscious of my hands looking so much older than I do. 

I have to admit I love it when people guess my age as usually so much younger than I am. It makes me feel like I have done something right.  Whether it was the right genentics or clean living can be debated in another post or your own head.  I do like to think I have had something to do with it but I won't argue the point.  You heard me right.  I, Marian F, will not argue.  That is big coming from me. 

So, there I was feeling self conscious about my hands and how beat up they look when it occurred to me what I do to make them look like that.  I know I joke about taking care of the poor, sick children and saving lives but I really get to do great service with these hands.  I get to ease suffering and do things for someone they are unable to do for themselves.  Some of the things no one would choose.  No one would choose to have tape taken off various places on their bodies several times a day, or get medicines that make them feel worse and not better or get shots or having to move when all they want to do is lay still.  I don't even think a masochist would choose what my hands have dished out. 

The flip side of that is my hands have tried to be tender and kind.  They have rubbed backs, stroked foreheads. fanned, tucked in, held and fed so many precisous little ones. I think it a privledge to be able to use them for such things.

I guess what I am saying is I don't care anymore that my hands look so much older than the rest of me.  They have worked the hardest and bare witness to how much they toil.  No one should be afraid of showing their hard work.  So, I am not.