The Hand That Revealed the Heart

April 13, 2021 Michelle Cuthrell

If I can be honest, in the back of my mind, I didn’t think it could possibly be that hard.

Every day of his life, Superman rocks out a surgically modified hand and accomplishes everything with four fingers that takes me five.

I’d seen him cook and clean and write and hang with a hand missing a thumb and an arm missing a radius, and he, in all his superpowers, made life with only one fully functional hand look just so easy.

So when I gave up the full use of my dominant hand for Lent, both to better contemplate the sacrifices Christ made for me leading up to Easter and also better view the world through the eyes of a superhero who blows me away with his handy-capabilities every single day, I assumed my life wouldn’t look a whole lot different.

Except that I was terribly, absolutely, flat-out, all kinds of wrong.

Putting These Hands in Better Ones

February 23, 2021 Michelle Cuthrell

When I forfeited the full use of my dominant hand for Lent, I really had no idea what on God’s green earth I was doing.

All I knew was that I craved to more seriously contemplate the sacrifice Jesus made for me in these six weeks leading up to Easter, and as I prayed about how I could do that in a meaningful way that would actually IMPACT my daily life this Lenten season, what God put on my heart to relinquish was something one of my selfless superheroes goes without EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

The full use of my right hand.

So, with the permission and blessing of our superhero who so beautifully does with four fingers and one bone what takes me five and two, I asked the boy we have always called Superman to restrain my right hand with a wrap so that I could spend the next six weeks viewing the world through his hands and his eyes.

I didn’t make a bunch of rules for this experience, mostly because this Type A first-born control freak really, really likes rules and regulations and boundaries and instructions, and, if I’m just being honest, I too quickly take what God would use to foster relationship and instead transform it into some kind of rulesy, rigid “religion.”

But the one rule I did make for myself was that I was not going to allow my newly restrained hand to keep me from anything I would normally do on an everyday basis.

If Superman and Superhero 4 could face these same things the world calls “handicaps” and prove them time and time again to be handy-capabilities — if they could seek solutions and not excuses and live as victors and victims — I had to at least try.

Now one week into this journey, I just didn’t realize how privileged I really was.

Experiencing Lent First-Hand

February 18, 2021 Michelle Cuthrell

I haven’t always fasted something for Lent.

Though I have known and loved Jesus since the age of 13, I grew up in a church community where neither subtracting nor adding things to my life for this season was an emphasized “thing.”

So although there have been years in my adulthood where I fasted chocolate or sweets or social media or television in order to grow closer to the character of Christ in those days leading up to Easter, I never consistently participated in a yearly Lenten fast that would require me to forego anything for 46 days of my life.

(Full Confession 1 — until yesterday, I didn’t realize Sundays didn’t count in the fast and Lent was actually 46, not 40, straight days , so I should clearly not be trusted in any and all things Lent.

Full Confession Number 2 — in our active duty military lives, my sweet soldier was gone nearly more Lenten seasons than he was home, so most of the time, I pretty much just pretended like I was fasting a husband for Lent and called that good enough. Note to military families: If you want to make this sound more holy, you can simply tell your friends you are fasting sexual intimacy, fasting secondary adult assistance or fasting good old-fashioned sanity. Any of the above are applicable when your soldier is overseas in this season.)

Front Row Seats to the Amazing

February 10, 2021 Michelle Cuthrell

She's been swimming, competing and setting records for years, but on Sunday during a 60-second Super Bowl commercial, her story stole an entire nation's heart.

That's because Jessica Long was born overseas with something the world calls a "disability" but one family knew was just a superpower in disguise.

With a condition called fibular hemimelia, Jessica was missing her fibulas, ankles, heels and most of the bones in her feet.

But not a fighting heart.

"It won't be easy," people told the family praying about adopting this sweetheart and her brother from the Siberian orphanage where a precious teenage couple had surrendered her in the best act of love they knew how.

I imagine the Long family received a long list of all the things this precious orphan in Siberia would NOT be able to do.

Possibly an inventory of all the ways her life would somehow be limited.

Maybe a million warnings from well-meaning friends and family about all the ways that their lives might then be limited, too.

Because it's just human nature to look at "realistic" parameters before realizable potential, to prioritize comfort above the kind of Christlike courage it takes to believe a Savior over a circumstance and trust that He really can move the mountains He tells us He can move.

But even in the face of the world's views of "handicaps," of society's view of "limits," this faithful family saw in this treasure what her Heavenly father saw:

A precious, perfect, priceless image bearer of God.

One whose identity didn't come from her abilities or her body parts but from a wonder-working God who specializes in bringing beauty out of brokenness and making all things new.

Away from the Noise, Away in a Manger

December 24, 2020 Michelle Cuthrell

December for our family is usually such a bustling, busy time of year.

Between the band concerts and classroom cookie contests and Reindeer Runs and hosted holiday parties for track clubs and Bible studies and friend groups and family members, the merriment and noise of the season is somewhere near the decibel of a 76-trombone parade.

But this year, with no community parades or classroom parties or Sunday celebrations or holiday presentations, the usually brassy noise of this season has decrescendoed, and what’s remained of the normally festive, flashy parade is a single soloist … pointing us back to that “O Holy Night.”

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