The Hands That Made Me Cry

Over the course of my life so far, I have witnessed many people raise their hands. Some to ask permission to speak in the classroom. Some to add emphasis to an exaggerated story. Some to stretch after a long day at work. But I have never been brought to tears by a raised hand until this past weekend.

I stood in front of a white folding chair grasping the back of the seat in front of me. McCall next to me on my right side and Jordan on my left in a room packed full of Jr. High and High School students. The band began to play. And the people around me sang along. I crossed my left foot over my right, balancing my body's weight on my left leg. My eyes searched across the crowd around me. The sea of faces represented many different families. Each person carried his or her own burdens and housed personal gifts. Every teenager held a story behind the secrecy in their eyes.

At that moment, I realized I could never know each story. I would never rejoice with each individual's successes or weep with them in their failures and personal sufferings. But regardless of that fact, I still cared. I cared about each student very deeply. I wanted them to each experience happiness, peace, and prosperity.

My eyes immediately focused on one boy in particular. He sat quietly beside his friend while everyone around them stood on their feet. His body slouched to one side against the back of his seat as he rested his forearm casually across his thigh. He wore round eyeglasses, a plain blue t-shirt, and blue jeans. As the band transitioned from one song to the next, the boy and his friend both stood to join the posture of the crowd. He then fidgeted his feet a little, swayed his body a couple of times, and finally balanced his weight and crossed his arms across his chest. I saw him wanting to worship. He was young, thirteen maybe, shorter than most boys his age and thin in build.

I closed my eyes and began to talk to God. I asked God to fill that boy with His Holy Spirit. To touch him. To love him. To hold him in His arms as the most precious child of God. To remind him that he is loved and adored and pursued by his Creator. That he is uniquely and beautifully made. I asked God to change him so that he may surrender every aspect of his life to our Heavenly Father. As the lead singer finished singing, "Every cry in my heart is to bring you praise from the inside out, Lord, my soul cries out from the inside out ... " I opened my eyes to find his arms lifted high and an expression of joy and trust across his face.

I still don't know who I was praying for. I don't know his name, his story, or what he was experiencing at that moment with the Lord, but I will always remember the tears that filled my eyes as I watched him worship with his own held tightly shut. I will never understand the promptings of the Holy Spirit, what made me choose him out of the crowd of people, or what it even meant in his life or even in my own. I might always remember my prayer that evening to be the most selfless prayer I have ever prayed. But I honestly believe that prayer was needed. It was a gift to me just as much, if not more, than it was possibly to him.