It's unbearably hot today, and my phone's weather is telling me that the temperature's currently, "89°c—though it feels like 119°c", and I can't help but agree.
Anyways, that's not my focus today, but I had to just get that out. Standing on a Firstbank queue is almost unbearably painful.
Right… It's out of my system now, so we'll be going to today's topic: living with your hands open.
Now for some of us, myself included, while the term "open arms" reminds us of love and comfort, "open hands" always seem to remind us of giving, and of material items, to be precise. But not this time. This time, this topic will try and address our attachments—to the world we live in, and to the things or people around us.
I know many people will be able to relate with this statement:
"I am someone who gets attached easily."
And while I can't ascertain the number of people who will be able to relate with the aforementioned sentence, I at least know that there are some who do.
For these people, I know how wonderful your hearts are—fashioned in such a way that it opens up quickly to people and to experiences, like a foam soaks up water. Unfortunately, unlike the foam which once it's squeezed is able to let go, letting go or giving things up, is one of your personal struggles.
To each of us, living with your hands open could mean many things:
It could be you letting yourself move exuberantly through life, your hands open behind your freely-racing body;
it could also be an expression of the inward state of your heart—a heart that has learnt to experience the world, and without latching on aggressively to its beauties and sorrows.
No matter what mental image it creates in your heart, one thing is clear: we can only truly say we now live with our hands open, not when we learn to shut out the world (because that is almost always as a result of an underlying cause—our fear of loss—which only shows that we're trying to hide how attached we can get), but when we learn to indulge in the experiences we undergo in it,—both good and bad—unravel the beauty in each intricately designed moment, and still appreciate one of life's most undeniable but beautiful features here on earth—it's ephemeralness.
Life on earth is transient, and even the longest number of years spent is still a relatively fleeting amount when compared to the vast amount of time that has passed, and the potential number of years still in store.
Cycles come and go, and this is one thing we must one day learn to accept. The trick though, is to learn this truth without keeping ourselves stuck in past or future cycles, or becoming scared of change.
While this is something I have battled with all my life—a bane of all those who love too deeply—it is something that I am daily being taught by the Lord to practice.
How do I do that? By learning to trust in the only one who isn't fleeting—God. The dynamicity of life, that makes it akin to a never-ending dance, can sometimes send our heads spinning, when we are hit by a flurry of changes. And most times, we're tempted to either curl up into a ball and stay in one place so we can keep soaking in the familiarness of a former cycle, or block it all out and just stop… feeling.
But the truth is that God doesn't want that for us.
He wants us to learn to embrace changes and all they bring—love, happiness, pain, lessons, questions, seasons of stretching—with the knowledge that everything on earth asides from what proceeds from His very essence, is fleeting and will pass. And while we do this, he wants us to always remember that no matter what, all things work together for the good of them who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.
,❤️
All things work together for our good ❤️