Love Is Written On His Arms

Actions speak louder than words...


Who knows this better than those who have needed help and found somebody there right in the nick of time? A helping hand in our time of desperation is more precious than a box full of treasure. How many of us have been stranded as the car ran out of gas, or just stopped running for some reason and left us totally unprepared and at the mercy of anyone willing to stop and help? Or how about getting up to the check out at the grocery store and realizing you've left your money at the house which is a half hour or more away? Or how about being in a quiet panic knowing what you've been paid isn't going to cover all the bills, and you're wondering how on earth you'll make it through the month?
There are many more emergencies and dire situations we've all experienced. We’ve all needed some help, big or small, to make it through a hard time. And what a relief and a surprise it was when somebody stepped up and came forward to offer you assistance when it was most needed in your life.


The high school choir at church just got back from a trip to the Houston area where they went to help fix up some areas that had been affected by the recent hurricane. They scraped and primed and painted, mowed and raked and picked up garbage, cut down and pulled up and hauled away trees, branches and bramble of all sorts. And at the end of every day, after working long hours in the 100+ temperatures, these kids would still find the energy to shower and change clothes to look nice and put on another concert every night. And people say teenagers are a lost cause... I beg to differ.
When my son came back from this ten day trip, I was there to greet the bus as soon as it pulled in. He was still in his hoodie from the trip home. It has long sleeves for those who get a little chilled under the air conditioning. So there he was, busy grabbing luggage from beneath the bus, acting as though he was a one man loading crew...
Anyway, I watched and smiled to myself remembering all the times he's done this before. Three previous years of high school band, not including this last one, and three prior high school church choir trips... which all combined makes for a lot of unloading busses. Finally he had dragged the last of the bags from beneath the vehicle and located his own suitcase and began to walk back toward the car. In the heat of unloading, he had pushed up his sleeves. Then I suddenly saw his arms. I gasped! What on earth???


He laughed and joked about it. I couldn't believe how scratched up they looked. His arms looked as though he'd been in a fight with a weed whacker, or a cage full of psychotic cats. They were scratched from the wrist to the elbow and had little clear blistery sores scattered around between all the scratches.
"What on earth happened to your arms?"


After his joking about it for several minutes, he finally told me.
He had been helping to clean up this one house, and they had a lot of overgrowth that needed to be cleared away. So he and the others had been hacking at trees and branches and bramble and all sorts of fence line plants and shrubs and carrying it off. And he hadn't really noticed it much with the scratches, with bramble you're going to get scratched even with your best efforts to avoid it. But then he got into some fire ants.

When he was done with that, his arms were red and swollen and pretty painful. But he took it all in stride. He's just like that. It's no big deal, he will say, and won't admit to feeling any pain.


But to me it's painful to look at.


And seeing his arms brought to memory a song I'd heard.
Here are the lyrics:
**********************************************************

The boy only wanted to give Mother something
And all of her roses had bloomed
Looking at her as he came rushing in with them
Knowing her roses were doomed
All she could see were some thorns buried deep
And the tears that he cried as she tended his wounds

And she knew it was love
It was one she could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands

He still remembers that night as child
On his mother's knee
She held him close and she opened her bible
And quietly started to read
And seeing a picture of Jesus he cried out
"Momma, he's got some scars just like me."

And he knew it was love
It was one he could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands

Now the boy's grown and moved out on his own
When Uncle Sam comes along
A foreign affair, but our young men were there
And luck had his number drawn
It wasn't that long till our hero was gone
He gave to a friend what he learned from the cross

But they knew it was love
It was one they could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands

It was one they could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands
**********************************************
And it struck me.
His arms aren't just covered with nasty painful scratches and fiery blisters...
These are the wounds of love.
Not gushy flowery words that tickle the ear and blow away in the winds of time...
but real, hard-working love given from one person to another.
A helping hand.
Ready and willing to give until it hurts.
I'm so glad he did the work.
I know it helped somebody who desperately needed other people to intervene.
And even as he gave something precious and real to the owner of the home he worked on,
he brought back something priceless to me as well.
God uses such personal ways to teach us things, doesn't he?

Point taken.
Powerful lesson at the hands of a group of teenagers.
Blessed are the scars of love.
His passion, his love is written right there on his arms for all to see.
Sometimes scars hold a powerful meaning.

Remember the scars of the only One who could save us are still there for all to see when we finally meet Him face to face.
Let us wear our scars without shame for they tell a story everyone in the whole world needs to hear.

Let us look at our own scars and let them help us to remember a love so powerful and deep and real that we would give anything and everything we have to share it.

Let love be written on our arms, our legs, our hands, our feet, our entire being.

And above all, let love be written on our hearts

“I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are always in my presence.”

            -Isaiah 49:16