handprints

Hannah straightened out my desk on Saturday night for me. Granted, it was a hot mess when she started. There’s lots o’stuff on it that shouldn’t be and I take full responsibility for it. It’s my desk and my mess, but she’s a lot like her Aunt Amy. She’s a little neatnik and she wanted to help her old Suzy---and, she helped. She didn’t throw anything away. She just straightened and rearranged. Right now I can’t find anything but give me a few days and I'll be back in the middle of my personal mess and bliss will reign once more. I've been watching too many episodes of Clean House!

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Hannah and Summer signed their autographs on the white board by my desk while they were at my house Saturday night. I looked at them this morning and thought of their sweet smiling faces and how much I love them. These signatures reminded me of the time Byron and I went to visit my Grandpa Bryant and Velma when Amy was a toddler. After we returned home, Velma wrote me a note and told me how she had found Amy’s tiny handprints on her mirrored chiffrobe after we left and that it reminded her of us and little Amy. I took it as a nice thing and found it endearing.

I think Velma was saying that there is something special about a baby’s telltale signs around a house, especially when no babies live there. Those tiny handprints speak of all she has to learn and all she has to give to the world. They tell of a heart eager to explore and touch and feel everything around her. Those little open hands tell of the hunger each of us had at one time to reach out to the possibilities of life, take hold of them, make them our own and ultimately leave our personal impact behind.

We leave handprints of a different kind wherever we go even now. Our mark on the world and the people around us remains long after we’ve exited the scene. Are we friendly and open to new people and new experiences or are we rushed and rude and just want to go home and hide from the world? Will those I come in contact with think positively about my mark on our encounter or will they be very glad I’ve decided to move along and leave them alone. I wonder what kind of handprint I left yesterday. What kind will I leave today?

Lord, we can leave good marks or we can leave bad ones. Help me leave handprints that are thought of kindly and fondly remembered. I love you, Father.

Suz