Dear Friends,
I was delighted when the JDFI president asked if I would undertake this month’s newsletter. As the daughter of Jim and Shirley Dobson, it’s my privilege to bring warm greetings from my family and everyone at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
I thought I would share something truly special with you during this spring season while we’re between holidays and other significant occasions.
Of the hundreds of monthly ministry newsletters that my dad wrote through the decades, there were certainly some that stood out from the rest. Perhaps you’re thinking of one right now that impacted you in a significant way. The letter that I treasured most was a commentary that my dad wrote in 1992 on the topic of human hands. It wasn’t his typical monthly appeal letter, but when I read his analysis again recently, I was reminded of why it remains my all-time favorite.
I hope you’ll enjoy this letter as much as I did—written in the style that is characteristically James Dobson.
From Dr. Dobson’s Pen
I’d like to talk to you this month about the unlikely subject of…human hands. Admittedly, the topic doesn’t seem to connect with my usual preoccupation with families, but bear with me.
What a marvelous machine the Lord has positioned at the end of these appendages we call arms. With the thumb in apposition to the fingers to facilitate grasping, with the expendable nails for picking up flat objects such as dimes, and with the concentration of sensory nerves in the pads for evaluating the texture and temperature of our world… human hands are truly “fearfully and wonderfully made.” They are loving gifts from the Creator, Who alone could have designed and manufactured them!
The usefulness of these fantastic tools was reemphasized for me as I watched a recent nature program on television. A hungry hyena had discovered a field of small ripe melons, and he was greedily trying to carry them all back to his home base. As hard as he tried, however, he could grasp only one at a time in his jaws. It was funny watching the frustrated animal try to cram a second melon in his mouth, which resulted in the first popping out and breaking on the ground.
After struggling with this problem for some time, he decided to carry one piece of fruit and kick another along with his paw. “How inefficient,” I thought. What the poor critter needed was a hand.
A human being would have had no such problem gathering the crop. At least eight or ten melons could have been collected and transported comfortably. Or, by constructing a makeshift basket with his flexible fingers, dozens of melons could have been harvested in short order.
What do you think when you look at your hands? For most of us, a thousand memories are linked to this part of our anatomy.
One of my earliest recollections of my hands occurred when I was three years old. I went to visit a teenage aunt who regularly used red fingernail polish. It fascinated me. When she turned her back, I began brushing the stuff on my index finger. By the time my mother caught me, I had decorated everything down to the knuckle. One might have assumed I had dipped my finger in blood. I was gorgeous.
For some reason, my mother did not try to remove the polish. “It’ll wear off,” she concluded. So I sported that weird-looking finger for five days before the color flaked off. By that time, however, a strange chemical reaction had damaged my skin. No fewer than 32 warts soon appeared on that index finger. Clusters of scaly, ugly neoplasm sprouted above and below the middle joint. It looked like leprosy. “There are too many warts to deal with,” said the small-town doctor. “They’ll eventually go away.” Thanks a million.
I carried those marks throughout boyhood. I hated them. Becky Ann Jenkins hated them too, and shrieked in disgust when I handed her a pencil in sixth grade. That’s when I learned to hide my right hand if girls were around.
You can be sure that Becky Ann never got another good look at my plague. Fortunately, time heals all warts, and I eventually recovered.
I’ll bet you can tell an interesting story about your hands, too. They carry great meaning for us, not only for their functional value, but because of what they represent to us emotionally.
For me, they bring to mind the love I still bear for the memory of my parents. My mother had soft, feminine hands, and she loved to use them when I was small to stroke my hair and rub my back. Her touch conveyed love to me in a way that compared with nothing else. I remember visiting her in a nursing home shortly before her death and looking again at those familiar hands. They were wrinkled and palsied by that time, yet they were still beautiful to me. How hard she worked to make life easy for me.
What I remember most about my father in my early childhood was the size of his hands. They engulfed mine, and made me proud and secure as I trotted along beside him on the street. He told me later that when I was only two years old, we lived in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment. The only place for my little crib was near my parents’ bed. My dad said it was not unusual during that period for him to awaken in the middle of the night to hear my tiny voice.
“Daddy?” Had he really heard it? He would lie there in the stillness until the word came again. “Daddy?” “Yes, Jimmy,” he would reply. “Hold my hand,” came the whispered request. My father said he would then grope through the darkness for my extended hand so he could engulf it with his own. Almost instantly, my arm would become limp, and my breathing deep and regular. I had gone back to sleep. Obviously, I had only wanted to know that he was there.
My father had very strong feelings for his father’s hands, as well. This is what he wrote about my grandfather’s death.
At five minutes to four o’clock the nurse came in and awakened one of my twin brothers, who roused with a start. “Is he gone?” he asked.
“No, but if you boys want to see your dad one more time while he is alive, you’d better come now.”
The word quickly passed around and we filed into the room to stand around his bed for the last time. I remember that I stood at his left side. I smoothed back the hair from his forehead and laid my hand on his big old red hand, so very much like my own. I felt the fever that precedes death: 105. While I was standing there a change came over me. Instead of being a grown man (I was twenty-four at the time), I became a little boy again. They say this often happens to adults who witness the death of a parent.
I thought I was in the Union Train Station in Shreveport, Louisiana, in the late afternoon, and I was watching for his return. The old Kansas City Southern passenger train was backing into the station, and I saw it come ‘round the curve. My heart swelled with pride. I turned to the little boy standing next to me and said, “You see that big man standing on the back of the train, one hand on the air brake and the other on the little whistle with which he signals the engineer? That big man is my dad!”
He set the air brakes, and I heard the wheels grind to a stop. I saw him step off that last coach. I ran and jumped into his arms. I gave him a tight hug, and I smelled the train smoke on his clothes. “Daddy, I love you,” I said. It all came back. I patted that big hand and said, “Good-bye, Dad,” as he was sinking fast now.
“We haven’t forgotten how hard you worked to send five boys and one girl through college—how you wore those old conductor uniforms until they were slick—doing without that we might have things that we didn’t really need…”
At three minutes to four o’clock, like a stately ship moving slowly out of time’s harbor into eternity’s sea, he breathed his last. The nurse motioned for us to leave and pulled the sheet over his head, a gesture that struck terror to my heart, and we turned with silent weeping to leave the room. Then an incident occurred that I will never forget. Just as we got to the door, I put my arm around my little mother and said, “Mama, this is awful.”
Dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, she said, “Yes, Jimmy, but there is one thing Mother wants you to remember, now. We have said ‘good night’ down here, but one of these days we are going to say ‘good morning’ up there.”
I believe she did say “good morning” too, 11 years later, and I know he met her “just inside the Eastern gate.”
A few years after my dad penned those words (which are now included in my book, Straight Talk to Men), he was suddenly seized by a heart attack and lay dying in a Kansas City hospital. I rushed to his side and found myself experiencing that strange return to childhood of which he had written. As he had done for his father so many years before, I patted his old hand in an inexpressible moment of appreciation. Though he was a big, rugged man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, he had delicate, artistic fingers. He had used those hands to teach me how to cast with a rod and reel, and how to shoot a rifle, and how to draw and paint.
I had seen him hold a King James Bible at least ten thousand times, thoughtfully turning the pages as he studied the Word. Soon, those beloved hands would be folded across his chest in stillness. It was an unbearable thought.
What incredible consolation there is in knowing, however, that my little grandmother was right. While we must say “good-bye” down here to all that is cherished and familiar, we will someday say “good morning!” on the other side. And I believe the glorified body we will inherit will be recognizable from our days here on earth.
We will see and hold our loved ones again in that dawn of eternity! We will feel the touch of those familiar hands! By what authority can we lay claim to this incomparable prize of eternal life? Amidst this world of sin and sickness and sorrow, whence cometh the hope that lies within?
The Scriptures tell us that this “pearl of great price” was purchased for us by the Master, whose hands caressed little children and whose touch brought sight to the blind beggar. He reached out to the underdog, the rejected, the tormented victims of leprosy, who were forced to shout “Unclean! Unclean!” when others were near. Yet Jesus approached them, and unbelievably, touched their open sores and healed the sickness that held them in bondage.
So it was throughout His ministry. Finally, He broke bread with His friends, and was then led as a lamb to the slaughter. Those precious hands that had raised Lazarus from the dead and brought wholeness to the multitudes were nailed viciously to a cruel Roman cross. Then by anguish of His soul, He bought salvation for every believer down through the corridors of time. Thank God, that included you and me.
This is what we celebrated on Easter Sunday. Not just the death of our Savior, but His glorious resurrection to life everlasting. And because He lives, we shall live too.
Thank you, Jesus, for those nail-scarred hands! I will praise and worship You forever!
Sincerely,
James C. Dobson
Wasn’t that meaningful? The way my dad could take a simple subject like hands and write a beautiful depiction, ending with the nail-scarred hands of our Savior was a tribute to his talent.
Now that my dad is in his eternal home, his description of seeing and holding our loved ones again in the dawn of eternity brings tears to my eyes. I’m reminded of Psalm 30:5 (NIV) which says, “weeping may stay for the night but joy comes in the morning.” All of us who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior have been given that glorious promise to look forward to in Heaven. “What a day of rejoicing that will be!”
Thank you for your friendship which has meant so much to my family and the ministry through the years. We would love to hear from you if you’d like to contact us. You can reach us through our website, iOS app, or by calling 877-732-6825.
We pray the Lord’s blessings upon you in the days ahead. Keep pressing on!
Warmly in Christ,
Danae Dobson
JDFI Board Member and Senior Editor
Dr. James Dobson Family Institute
