This request, around which my fingers had been clenched for years, was meant to be delivered palm to palm as I sat on His lap in confidence.
— from Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet by Sara Hagerty
Palm to palm. The imagery of this intimate interaction captured my heart.
Palm to palm — this is how Father invites me to come to Him. Not with hands tightly clenched together or with fists balled into lap from insecurity or anger or frustrations of a heart too oft disappointed.
But open.
Vulnerable.
Surrendered.
Trusting.
Enough that I can be completely honest and free in placing my hand palm to palm with Father’s.
Giving over everything to which I’ve clung tightly for fear that He would not openly receive my squashed hopes.
Somewhere along the way, I had forgotten my Father’s tender love for me. Or perhaps I had never fully experienced the depths of it.
All these years of misunderstanding my place in His heart had caused me to withhold pieces of myself from Him. Dubbing Father to own the fickleness I held, I failed to trust Him with my hurts. Or my hopes deferred.
Oh, I may have come to Him, even crawled into His lap and leaned my head against His chest to soak up His nearness. But all the while, I clasped my secret desires tightly to myself. Fingers curled around dreams I deemed too selfish to voice, hurts that had been seared by rejection from others. Disappointments that caused me to ponder my worth and come up lacking time and again.
But to open my hand and stretch my palm against His would mean a releasing of all I held dear. Being this close would cost me, well, everything.
Nothing would remain hidden. If I opened my hand, I would expose every secret. Every wound revealed, every flaw uncovered, every fear laid bare.
Every single part of me would be seen and known.
But it was time to risk it all, even if it meant rejection. Because my hands were so tired from bearing this burden of brokenness by myself, it was time to come clean with Father.
So I dared put His word to the test even if I somehow came up wanting. Even if I still fell short.
It was time to risk all of me with His love.
Tentatively, I pried each finger loose. And yes, there was a world of hurt held in check within my palms. But with the prying of the pain came the Promise from His own.
As I turned my palms to face Father’s, my broken spilled forth, tumbling into His open hands. What had filled my grasp seemed minuscule in His care. As my palms descended to meet His, the hurts and hopes and the empty all melted away.
Sitting palm to palm with Father, all was grace upon grace. Rejection had no place in this transaction. What I believed to be worthless ruins became an offering of love received and resurrected, as fully as He claimed me as His own.
Palm to palm.
All of me tucked safely in the hands of perfect love — where fear is cast out perfectly.
Where a daughter delights in her Father’s presence, and her Father delights to be with His daughter. No matter how grubby her hands.