my hand in yours

When you read these words, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

Personally, I have a very vivid picture from a recent experience. I have had the privilege and honor of walking with people in their final days of life. It is an experience that some will never walk, either by choice or happenstance. For myself, it was asked of me, a call.

When I read these four small words recently from a friend, the depth of their meaning became larger than life. An image that is close to my heart is clear, the memory still alive in mind. My hands holding my dear friend’s hands wrapped in a rosary that was so sacred to the both of us from a time where life and beauty consumed us. The words…rang true in a deeper way than I expected.

When the final days of your life are upon you, do you see yourself alone or do you see someone by your side?
To be able to have the honor to hold someone’s hand who is leaving this life, is beyond words that I could write simply here. And to be honest, they are sacred moments, that I want to hold close to my heart and respect the soul crossing over.

But then if we were to take a step further away from the idea of death, my hand in yours, is the epitome of human connection.

How often in this life have you found yourself in the simple act of holding someone’s hand? A love interest, a child, a parent or just a friend. It feels to me as if this is always associated with love, but in fact, I have held the hand of many in different contexts and levels of connect.

Human connection.

The act of touch is such an important physical connection. It is complicated and impassioned for most, while some find it an incredibly difficult act to receive or offer to another.

Touch is an intimate experience and for some it is not always associated with positive feelings. Those are ones whose stories need to converge with healing to be able to relearn this most basic human expression in the most honest and humble of ways.
Hand in hand can bring comfort, a sense of peace and a feeling of safe haven. Our world can be a lonely place and something as simple as holding one’s hands can enhance the emotional need to not feel alone.

Volunteers in retirement homes and hospice care will sit by the bedside of those who will not say a word in their pain and fleeting breath but hold their hand to let them know someone is there. They are not alone. It is a very genuine experience I have always believed that those in comas can sense and understand all that is around them.

The body is a mystical form which no one can utterly understand the true depths of its existence and how it processes the surrounding life.

I have had a ministry in Lourdes, France for over 20yrs where I walk with those who are quite ill or dying. They come for the healing waters. Without revealing the sacred prayers or journey into the baths, I will say that I have held countless hands as I walked them into the water.

Between the human connection reminding them that I walk with them our eyes connect along with the touch and to the peace and prayer they are walking towards, it is the greatest human spiritual experience of my life.

So, as I age, the act of touch has transformed itself into many different experiences of acceptance, on many distinct levels. I am grateful that I have taken the chance on human connection and turned what was once an evil thought to one that is the most beautiful experience I have embraced on my journey.

Ask yourself if you are open to human touch. If you shy away from it, it brings you fear, or is something that you just cannot fathom…go deeper into the why.

Listen.
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Walk yourself home to the human connection we all desire, and you will find yourself once again.


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