Hands

Hands of life reach out for the unknown,
grasping, searching for what God has sown
in the way of a fate not yet shown.

Hands, vulnerable and innocent,
filled with a youth that is not yet bent
by choices that are still to be spent.

Distant horizons sparkle in the sun
as time is let loose to run
through hands struggling with deeds to be done.

Hands of hope, hands of uncertainty,
needing to learn how living can be
a way to truth and identity.

What secrets will these hands reveal
groping about, looking for the real
amidst falsehoods that events conceal?

Unseen burdens rest upon these hands …
hard-fought struggles in shifting sands
on beachheads of future, warring lands.

Whose troubled face will these hands caress?
Which mysteries will these hands address?
What weighty problems will they assess?

Hands of potential that can reach and touch
our hearts in so many ways with such
joy and pain that are, at times, too much.

For these untested hands, let us pray
that God will bless them every day
with a faith that triumphs over dismay.

Anab