The “Not-So-Right” Hand

A little while ago, I heard my daughter say something that I haven’t been able to forget. As she was being reprimanded for not obeying her mother, she said to me, “Mommy, I can’t help it. I really can’t. My right hand made me do it. It always does. I wish I could just get rid of it.” Wow! Her saying this sure did stop me in my tracks. And I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, my little girl understands original sin much better than I thought she did (and perhaps even much better than I do right now).

Yes, children can understand and articulate things so well sometimes, much better than most of us adults I think. We all know the tug of war that my daughter was referencing–the desire to do something versus the knowledge that the something should not be done at all. Back in Genesis, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; and it was then that things down here were no longer just good. Adam blamed it on God and Eve, as Adam pointed to the woman that God himself had put in the garden with him; and Eve blamed it on that serpent who had deceived her. And my daughter, all these years later, blamed it on her tiny right hand. We all pass it on–it’s in our nature now, the old one that is.

In Christ, though, we have a different nature, a “super nature,” an ability to override that sneaky little right hand. We just don’t always choose to live like we do. That’s one of the most important things I want to teach the precious little girl God has entrusted to me. I want to teach her to choose to live like Christ, even when her own flesh and the world around her are telling her that it’s impossible to do so. There are certain “right hand” moments down here that are truly impossible; but, thankfully, our Christ is actually the God of the impossible.

I’ve been feeling a lot like my little girl lately. I’ve been feeling as if my life is a string of “right hand” moments, and I thus feel a desperate need to cut off that part of me that makes me question and doubt almost every big decision I’ve ever made in my life. When my friend Jane was alive down here and I confided in her about my questioning and doubting, she would always say to me, “Remember whose you are, Angie. Just remember whose you are.” And then the next few sentences out of her most wise mouth would no doubt include the words “a daughter of the King.” I miss Jane so much. She was the only fellow cancer patient with whom I ever became close; and she somehow always knew exactly what to say to me to make me feel like my feet were back on solid ground. (And yes, I know, there’s a “wrong” foot joke in here somewhere).

Jane was so very right. I am the King’s daughter indeed and, as such, I have been given the ultimate royal pardon. So, even when I do mess up big time, I don’t have to lose my right hand–Christ has already offered his up in my stead. That’s real love. He, Jesus, stepped in front of the executioner so that I wouldn’t have to some day. Jane used to tell me that she had begged God for my life and that she knew he had heard her and that I would be okay. And when I would say, “What about you?” she would then say that she’d be okay either way, but I had to live–and she taught me how to do just that. She was a friend like none other, a friend who showed me what it really looks like to be a King’s daughter; and she was a friend who helped me begin the process of loving myself more than I ever have before–“right” hand moments and all.

(In the interest of full disclosure, my daughter and I are actually both left-handed.) 🙂