Father, May I? – Tired Hands, Weak Knees – May 13th

Father, May I Be Weak?
May 13, 2021

Tired Hands, Weak Knees

Hebrews 12:12-13, ‘So be made strong even in your weakness by lifting up your tired hands in prayer and worship. And strengthen your weak knees. For as you keep walking forward on God’s paths, all your stumbling ways will be divinely healed.’ (TPT)

He hadn’t anything left. It had been a long time since it all went away. What little had once remained, life stole when it came back around the bend on what appeared to be its final lap. His grandmother used to say years upon years ago, ‘Her get-up-and-go had got-up-and-left.’ Yeah, that’s right. He had forgotten what she looked like, almost, but he could still hear her voice in his head. She was a praying grandma. Some good that did!

He had expected it to be different; had repeatedly hoped for a better outcome. Every time he went before the parole board, he thought this would surely be the year. This will be it, he confided in himself like a secret, this will be my time, my time to leave this all behind, he’d whisper. Year after year, proudly he dressed, on the morning of his meeting with officials who didn’t know him but who would decide his future. They were people like he was a person, salt-n-pepper hair now, tighter faces evidenced a lived life by the wrinkles on their faces, eyes more expressionless and emptier than the year before. He’d watched them age, and guessed, since he hadn’t seen a mirror in goodness knows how long, he had grown old right alongside them. No matter, he dressed with pride in his green suit, the one that had the cleanest patch with the most effective writing on the chest, his number that said ‘I am somebody. After all, I am a number; I am somebody.’ He’d take extra care to comb his hair, what little remained, and he’d brush his teeth for exactly three minutes because that was his lucky number. Year after year.

Every year, the same result. Nope, not today; the answer would resound with finality like a wooden gavel smashing against a Formica top; the decision received like a leaden slug in his gut, a whoosh felt internally when all the air left inside as the balloon of hope popped again. And again. Year after year.
This year would be it; he prepared himself. The final time he would let himself hope. Another round of decision-makers, like arbitrators mediating his life. He saw it in the way they glared at him, heard it in the questions they didn’t ask. They had their minds made up before he even trudged through the door, with every step of the way, the chains lagging behind, reminding him how captive he truly was; every footstep forward another lifetime backward. It felt it, like walking toward a guillotine and placing your neck on the blade, then counting down the seconds before you no longer needed to count anything at all, ever again. Their judgment rendering the unraveling of his seams, coming undone, all up in his stuff ‘til it imploded everywhere unseen.
In their scrutiny, he fought to return the examination. He wanted to lower his eyes but that would make him seem shifty. He tried to hold his gaze steady. Tried not to swallow too hard but the fear and the tears were lodged someplace between his throat and his heart and he could hear both beating away like a loud drum. Last night toyed with his senses, the recollection like a real-life drama. He felt the cold of the concrete against his face again and tasted the salt of his emotion, remembering the hardness of the floor pressing through his threadbare uniform. She had been a praying grandma.

As he wept, he could hear the words so long ago she would utter on his behalf to an unseen God. All these years, he had believed God was unavailable, unattainable, uncaring, dismissive, unrelenting. But last night in that moment, that God Who had been real to his grandma, came alive to him too. He felt Him breathe inside of him, knew His presence as he knew his own shadow, said His name like a long, lost friend. Oh, he was worn out, of that he was sure, but it felt different this time as he looked around the table. He raised shackled tired hands to heaven, and the tears streamed down his face, more because the victory God had won inside him than in the defeat to which he was accustomed.

‘Thank you.’ He heard a foreign voice murmur, sounding vaguely familiar, and he realized he meant it. Could it have been his voice so sincere? Maybe this year…maybe all it would take was belief, contriteness, grinding away the chip that had lodged on his shoulder so long ago, the shift of the paradigm he had welcomed next to him. He heard the echo of his Grammy’s voice again, ‘Lord, just have your way with my grandson. Please, God. Don’t give up on him, please.’ She was a praying grandma, you know.

I want to know the Father’s opinion about everything!
Won’t you JOURNEY with me this month as we ask our Father, ‘MAY I?’’