Please Hold My Hands

Baby Kate has quite the active hands. 

She pokes herself in the eye, grabs her face, and throws them up in the air to startle herself. 

Sometimes this is just fun to watch.  But it’s not quite so entertaining when it’s time for her to go to sleep, when it’s obvious that she’s tired and ready to sleep and yet she can’t stop moving her hands and arms and keeping herself awake.

One night I found myself holding her hands gently so that she couldn’t move them.  As she relaxed in my lap, arms finally still, she slowly started drifting off to sleep.

Eventually she was totally zonked out and I could put her down, but only because I held her hands still while she was falling asleep.

I thought about it as I held her hands that night—maybe Heavenly Father does this for me.  I’m sure there are things that I do that keep me from peace or happiness in my life—things that are much like pulling my own hair or poking myself in the eye.  I wonder which situations in my life that feel restrictive are actually Heavenly Father restraining me from getting in the way of my own happiness or peace.  I wonder if, when I’m flailing around and working myself into a fit of exhausted frustration, he ever takes my hands and holds them down gently so that I can relax and rest.  I’m not sure, and I’ll probably never know.  But somehow it makes sense to me that sometimes He just knows that I need Him to hold my hands for me…