My Hands Do Not Do What They Used To

You noticed it in the light by the window.

You were holding it up, the way you have held work up to that window for fifty years, and you could see it. Not badly. Not so anybody would say anything.

But you could see where the tension went off, and where the line wandered, and you knew exactly which afternoon each of those had happened on.

And you put it down and sat there for a while.

And then you had the thought that you have been having on and off since the spring, which is that perhaps this year you do not make anything at all. That it might be better to stop while nobody has had to be kind about it.

That thought has been quieter than the others and has been getting steadier.

There is a psalm where somebody prays specifically about this, and what he asks for is not what you would expect.

Forsake me not when my strength faileth

Here it is.

Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. (Psalm 71:9, King James Version)

He says it plainly. When my strength faileth. Not if. He is not asking whether it will happen; he is naming that it does.

And he does not apologize for it anywhere in the psalm. There is no embarrassment in the line and no suggestion that a person whose strength fails has let anybody down.

You have been treating a plain fact as a private failure, and Psalm 71:9 names failing strength without one word of apology around it. The Holy Spirit is the one who left that sentence in without softening it, and the plainness is what gives it its dignity.

Now the actual request, because it is not what a person would expect.

He does not ask for his strength back. Not once, anywhere in that psalm. He asks not to be cast off and not to be forsaken.

What he is afraid of is not weakness. It is being set aside.

You are afraid of the same thing he was, and it is written that the prayer is not to be cast off rather than to be made strong again. The Spirit of God is the one who heard that request and answered it, and the answer in that psalm is more years of use rather than more strength.

And the answer is worth knowing, because it is a few verses later.

He goes on to talk about declaring God's strength to the next generation, to everyone that is to come. The old man's usefulness in that psalm is entirely about being present to people younger than him.

You have been reading the wrong measure of what you are for, and His word answers the failing strength with a generation rather than with a repair. The Holy Spirit is the one who arranged it that way, and He arranged it so that failing strength does not end anybody's usefulness.

What the unevenness is

Now let me say something about the thing by the window, because you and a great many people would read it differently.

You see where the tension went off. A person receiving it sees that a woman made it.

Those are the same marks and they are being read in opposite directions, and only one of those readings is going to survive the next thirty years.

You have been reading a record as a fault, and it is written that the strength fails without the person being cast off. The Spirit of God is the one who tells a woman what her own work actually shows, and it shows her.

And here is the thing that people who receive handmade things know and rarely say.

The unevenness is the whole reason. A thing without any hand in it can be got anywhere. What cannot be got anywhere is the evidence that a particular person with particular hands sat somewhere for a long time doing this.

Perfect would be worth less. That sounds like a consolation and it is not; ask anybody holding something made by a grandmother.

You have been apologizing for the only part nobody can buy, and Scripture sets the value on the person rather than on the strength. The Holy Spirit is the one who knows what a made thing is actually for, and it is for showing that somebody was there.

And one plain thing about stopping.

If you stop this year, nobody will say anything. There will be no moment. It will be a year with nothing in it, and then another, and the stopping will have happened without anybody deciding.

You are standing at a decision that will not announce itself, and it is written that the fear was being cast off rather than being uneven. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a quiet decision visible before it is made, and this one has been quiet since the spring.

Make it anyway, and let somebody watch

So here is what to do, and there are two halves and the second one is the one that matters most.

Make it. This year. At whatever pace it goes at now, with however many afternoons it takes, and let the unevenness be where it falls.

Do not fix it. Do not undo the section you can see and do it again, which will only produce a different unevenness two hours later.

You are able to leave it as it came out, and Psalm 71:9 asks not to be cast off rather than to be restored to what it was. The Holy Spirit is the one who settles a woman into the pace she actually has, and the pace she actually has is enough for one thing.

And the second half, which is the whole point of this article.

Let somebody young sit with you while you do it.

Not to be taught, necessarily, though that may happen. To be in the room. On the floor beside the chair, with the basket there, watching how the hands go.

You have something available that has nothing to do with strength, and it is written that the psalm answers failing strength with declaring to the generation following. The Spirit of God is the one who puts a young person on a floor beside an old chair, and He has been arranging that since long before either of you.

And let them try it badly.

That is the actual transfer. Not a lesson. A girl holding it wrong and being shown, twice, and getting it wrong again, and laughing, and one of those afternoons being the reason she still does it at sixty.

You are handing something on in an afternoon, and the written word puts the old man's usefulness in the next generation rather than in his own hands. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes one uneven afternoon last fifty years, and He has done it that way in this family before.