Eliana Chow

Take my hands and let them be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

I opened my hands in prayer and began unspeakably to cry. I was struck weak by their emptiness, their vulnerability, their human form.

These hands had tried. They had tried to grasp what my eyes failed to see. Frantically, fearfully. Always fearfully.

These hands were no longer pure. They were stained by acid rain that drained itself from the most unwilling parts of my soul into a bowl.

I was forced to carry that bowl, a broken vessel that leaked and made my mind speak words to itself that were not then and never were true.

I begged my Lord for an open door. I got down on my hands and knees to plead for something I wasn’t allowed to see.

He closed the doors to remind me he was God and not I. I hated him. Only because my hands were closed, too.

I opened my hands, empty, and suddenly found that they were full.

Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful, Lord, for Thee.