Pruny Hands - A Relationship with God

How? How are pruny hands indicative of a relationship with God? Well, you keep washing dishes at your friends' houses. :)

Over the past week, I have washed a lot of dishes at the homes of my friends. Not only has this been an act of service on my part, but I have been able to give that act with true JOY. Part of the reason is because I have learned over the years how to, on occasion, succesfully GIVE JOYFULLY. I can give to others with the joy of a child feeding a hungry duck.

Marshall Rosenberg of NVC fame, asks us to remember the utter joy we feel when giving a hungry duck bread- the laughter and wonder we feel as the duck willingly gobbles up just exactly what we have to offer! While sometimes the recipient of my giving does not blatantly show his or her 'hunger' for my gifts, I do often know that my gift is just right. It is just right for the person receiving and it is just right for my ability and capacity to give. I am not over-extended, nor am I under-challenged in my giving.

Washing dishes is a good fit.

Most women I visit have lots of children and lots of dirty dishes. When they invite me and my children to their homes, I receive a gift of hospitality and enrichment. I learn how to be a better mother, wife and individual from these visits. My children benefit from developing practice at friendship and courtesy and more. All this adds up to a RELATIONSHIP ~ a relationship that flows between the humans in my culture. To honor that relationship, it is very natural for me to want to keep that relationship flowing. So I offer my own gifts in return.

God also wants a relationship. He gives us gifts of hospitality, comfort, strength... the list goes on infinately. We humans have something beautiful to give back in this relationship. And just like for each other, the human gift is often an act of service. Not only can I offer up my own tasks and services to God and to other humans as members of Christ's body, but I can also specifically serve God. Maybe I can't wash His dishes, but I can take time and space from my day to pray- just to and for my relationship with God. This kind of prayer is simply glorification of Him. No thanks, no requests, no duties. Just glory.

God or friends are mere inactive nouns without the relationship. Point A and Point B are stagnant without the living, flowing connection between them. I think of that connection as a relationship- a movement that keeps changing in intensity, brightens and fades, thickens and thins, breaks and is reconnected. All this changing of the relationship tide is normal, healthy and desirable. We are human and we operate this way.

But I must keep myself conscious of the need for this relationship. When I forget, I may accidently or with God's grace stumble upon the moving path. And sometimes I flat out forget or even push it away. But pushing away is still a relationship. Hate is not the opposite of love, but a resistance of the love you know is pouring over you. And love is gentle enough to pour over you and never hurt you while you try to resist. :)

God's love pours over us, whether we know it or not, whether we want it or not. This is His grace and it pours over us like clear rinse water washing away our stains in the grand dishpan of life. Each dish I wash with the intention of serving another is a baptism of my relationship with God.