A Woman’s Hands
When I was a girl, a popular television commercial advertised a gentle dishwashing liquid. In the commercial, a manicurist expounded the virtues of a particular dishwashing liquid to her patron and then told her, “You’re soaking in it now!” At this point, the woman getting the manicure expressed her shock and dismay!
When I was a girl, I never saw my own mother sitting before a manicurist, but she does now! Mother loves for her nails to look pretty and she gets many compliments on them. Mother polished her own nails when I was young, but that is definitely not my most prominent memory of Mother’s hands.
I remember Mother’s hands cutting out dresses and pinning and sewing and washing dishes and running wet clothes through the wringer on her washing machine and hanging clothes on the line and ironing and cooking and things like that. Mother’s hands were rarely idle.
I am grateful that our historical museum . . .
. . . honors what women have done with their hands. A spinning wheel and a sewing machine are on display, as is this bedspread that Mrs. Eugene Quarles wove around 1885.
Think of the work that women put into the quilt and lace-trimmed sheet in this baby cradle.
The museum also honors “Aunt Polly” Williams, who owned the local hotel and lived a very colorful life.
Proverbs 31 tells again and again about how the “excellent wife” uses her hands. Thank you for all the ways that your hands serve your family.
She looks for wool and flax
And works with her hands in delight.
Proverbs 31:13
She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
And her hands grasp the spindle.
Proverbs 31:19
She extends her hand to the poor,
And she stretches out her hands to the needy.
Proverbs 31:20
Give her the product of her hands,
And let her works praise her in the gates.
Proverbs 31:31