The Wrinkle of Time

Hands. Paper thin skin, like parchment paper. A lifetime etched on those bent scrolls. Every mark a testament of a lover's hand held, faces of dear children caressed and comforted, years of factory work. Those hands that raised little ones into adults, those hands that laid on the sick and prayed healing, those hands raised in worship, those hands clasped in fervent prayer. Holy hands.

Eyes. Rheumy, the seas of time washed over them. Eyes that have seen the beginnings of a century fighting its way through the birth of industry and technology. Automobiles, wars, radio, television, moon landings. Those eyes watching little children grow up into beautiful adulthood, those eyes beholding grandchildren. Eyes that have beheld the hardness of life, and the goodness of God. They still have their snap and sparkle. Dulled in vision from macular degeneration, but with clarity to see the hand of God working constantly on the behalf of family.

Legs, once strong enough to dance the night away to the tune of a fiddle, now tremble and shake when standing to rise. But those legs have stood firm on the Word and promises of God. Those knees have worn holes in carpet in hours of prayer.

We wear the tattoos of life on our bodies. Etched wrinkles each bearing witness to worry or laughter. Age spots that reflect a lifetime of standing in the warm sunshine. Arthritic fingers bent with the decades running across black and white keys. Knees calloused and thickened from leaping in athletics or bowed in prayer.

We are stunned when a yet unscarred, unmarked body passes. The smooth skin yet unwrinkled ages us further. Young hands left cold with much left to accomplish cause our own in clench at the injustice.

But a life well marked, we forget that those bodies once danced. Once fought. Once served. We forget that a lifetime is etched in what we bleach and fill and pay to buff out. We forget that ears that have heard the cacophony of a lifetime are so acutely tuned into the voice of God, and that they hear our conversation about them.

For some, those marks bear pain. Perhaps lines of addiction mar the forehead rather than years of laughter. Perhaps alcoholism has etched its mark. But even in those, redemption may be found.

We were never intended to bear any mark but that of the Creator. It is the fall that causes us to wear our lives so clearly. Yet, as He so often does, even in the marks of hard living, He can redeem and transform.

When the twilight of life blinks in glassy eye, when once strong legs betray us by buckling and trembling, and when twisted hands clasp in prayer again....The Creator beckons. He takes gnarled hands and transforms them into the smooth straight hands of youth. He bids rise, and trembling legs are strengthened and lengthened that they may once again dance in the Presence of a King. One by one, those years of earthly living are erased and give way to the smooth and clear skin of eternity.  Those eyes, glassy from all that has been seen, are clear and behold every mystery from the beginning of time.

The veil lifts.
Forever.