The hands we hold are gifts

I was sitting at my prayer desk the other night, two flickering candles in front of me, letting my mind wander as I looked at the small framed icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help that once belonged to my grandmother. It’s an inexpensive framed image, one that she must have had since the 1960s at least, but in the candlelight it shone like pure gold. And as I looked at it – a picture I see every single day -- I noticed something. For the first time, I realized that Mary and Jesus were holding hands.

That moved me.