Open Hands

When you are open, Love can enter. When you are open, you are strong. Not that you are strong because you are open, but because you are open, you are strong. When you are open, you are open to love, to giving love, to receiving love, to surrendering, to forgiveness, to humility. When you are open to being loved and loving, you forgive easily; you cannot hold your self or others for mistakes or shortcomings, because your hands are literally open and to hold them, is to hold yourself in time. Besides it becomes very tiring to clinch your fist for 40 minutes, let alone 30 years, but that is what we do, we just hold onto bitterness, unforgiveness and hatred and we end up really tired; real bitter and really for no reason. Someone once said unforgiveness is like drinking poison in order to punish the person who hurt you, believing drinking the poison will hurt them, but it doesn't, it only hurts you. If we are struggling with forgiveness one thing we can do is ask God to help us to want to forgive the person. Desire is key; you must want to be free. You must want to open your closed fists and open your hands. Because I am open, I see and understand that I deserve to be loved, that I need to be loved, treated with kindness, forgiveness and I deserve to give love. Not that we humans have done something magical to deserve love, but because the Creator who designed us says, "This is what I made you for- to love and be loved." The car made by Ford cannot say, "I'm not made to drive". And we cannot say to our Creator, "I was not made to love". Indeed the car was made to be driven and we were made to love and be loved. Loved by God, loved by man, loved by self. God is in love with you! God is in love with the person you have not forgiven, God is in love with every part of you, we are the Creator's children. I always thought being closed and "strong" was strength, but strength is vulnerability, strength is an open heart; strength is an open mind and soul. Yes, when I am open harm and bad can get in, but when I am open I can also release and forgive those things because of God's grace. God's grace and love allows us to open our closed hands and receive. God's grace and love through sometimes the most painful experiences gently pushes us to open up. It's amazing the beauty of pain; how God can turn a tragedy into a loving experience. Many times when we are hurt in intimate relationships, or by our mothers, fathers, cousins, an unkind uncle or man who touched us, a parent that beat us, a child who bullied us, we become closed. Because the pain of being unloved, abused and battered has been all too much. We become closed fists, scared to love, scared to be loved, in fear of of being abused again, unloved, yet again. We become bruised, closed, depressed puppies, fearing the very thing we want- love. And we become very tired too. If we can have a shift in perception and see that we were made to love and not live in fear in time we can begin to open are closed fists and surrender to love. Just give up, to love. When we open are hands, we receive, we surrender, we give to love. And when we are open, it does not mean that we won't experience pain and hurts but because we are open we can make the choice to forgive, to love. To live love is a choice. To stay open hearted is a choice. God is our example of perfection because God always chooses to love us, always chooses to forgive us, to surrender to our will! God is the definition of compassion. Wow, God is truly love and we are made of love. To love is where we must return. Dinah Clark/Miss Deliverance