Tonight, we had just gathered around the dinner table as a family, and were enjoying the warmth of our love, the comforts of home and the joy of one another’s company. It was a Norman Rockwell moment, and I was basking in the time warp in which nobody was fighting or poking or jesting or taunting.
I assumed our youngest, Rebekah, must have felt the emotion of the moment as I did, because she asked, “How come we don’t hold hands when we pray?”
Stirred by her honest question, I reached over and tenderly grasped her precious little six-year old fingers. I turned to my husband and clasped his hand. He, in turn, grabbed Jon’s nail-bitten hand. Jon awkardly grabbed Bethany’s hand, and with the slightest hesitation, Bethany reached for Grace’s hand.
The time warp was gone. Instead of the joy of one another’s presence, we were brought back into our own reality with the squeezing, squealing, pulling, prodding, giggling and taunting that followed. As Grace reached for Rebekah’s hand, to close our circle of love, she resisted, then succumbed with a little sigh.
Good parents that we are, Scott and I instantly decided that if the hand-holding caused this many problems for our children, then this would HAVE to be protocol until their hearts and their behavior could lovingly, obediently and charmingly embrace this new family tradition.
Beka admitted as she reluctantly continued holding Grace’s fidgety hand,
“Mom, I didn’t say I wanted to hold hands when we pray…..
Beautiful.