TITLE: Wonderfully Made By Miriam Basye-Carter 06/18/09 |
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Not only do I welcome your critique on the manuscript but I am not sure about the title of this piece. Suggestions welcome. Thanks!
Some were big, some were little, some were soft and pretty, others were thick and rugged but all of them were made to fit perfectly on the Master’s hand.
Gary Glove was neither pretty, nor was he rugged. Gary’s agile fingers were made of latex rubber and Gary was yellow as bright sunshine.
Gary, like most of the other gloves lay limply on the shelf not even knowing why he was there at all. Some gloves had been there for years, covered with dust and neglected.
Others went out daily on mysterious missions and came back to the shelf looking happy and satisfied.
“I am tired of lying around all the time!” Gary said to a beautiful satin evening glove as she came in one day. “You always seem so happy and fulfilled. What do you do all the time anyway?”
Smiling, the satin glove answered, “The Master needed me to play the piano today for hundreds of people! You should have seen the joy on their faces as the Master used me to make beautiful music for them!”
“I want to make beautiful music!” said Gary. “Tomorrow I will go out and play the piano just like you!”
“I don’t play the piano myself, silly!” the satin glove laughed, “Only the Master knows how to play the music. I just let him use me.”
“What do you mean, you ‘let him use you’?” Gary asked curiously.
“Well, we are gloves!” she said as if the answer were obvious, “We are made to be worn on the Master’s hand. He fills me up with his hand and together we make music.”
Puzzled, Gary went away. “I don’t need the Master to come into me. I want to play the piano for myself,” He decided.
The next day Gary ventured out to find a piano to play. Soon he saw it, it’s beautiful white and black keys shining on a brightly lit stage. Boldly, Gary swaggered up to the keys and announced to no one in particular, “I am going to play a beautiful song!” but when he tried to play the piano his empty fingers just flopped futilely on the keys. Frustrated, Gary flopped harder but still no music came. Finally, humiliated and exhausted, Gary slunk back to his shelf, hoping that no one would ever talk to him about pianos again.
A few days later he met a warm, woolen glove, as it tumbled into the closet, laughing. Sparkling flakes of snow puffed from his knitted fingers. “What a fantastic time the Master and I had together!” The glove crowed as it went by Gary, “We were clearing the snow off the driveway for an old woman who could not do it for herself. Afterwards we built a beautiful snow man in her yard so she could enjoy it as she looked out the window.”
“That sounds fun! I would love to build a snow man”, said Gary.
“I didn’t build the snow man myself—“ the woolen glove started to say.
“I know, I know,” Gary interrupted, “The Master inside you did it…but I don’t need any ‘Master’, I have fingers and a thumb. I can do what ever I like. I will show everyone that I, too, can build a snow man!” and Gary set out to try.
The snow outside was moist and a little sticky—just right for snow man-building but though Gary tried with all his might, he could not scoop up even one handful of snow! Flop! Flop! Flop! His empty fingers were useless for making a snow man. Finally Gary went back to the shelf saying bitterly, “I hate playing in the snow anyway!”
Early the next morning Gary was almost bowled over by a rough, leather work glove as it made its way eagerly out of the closet.
“Hey!” Gary called after him, “What are you in such a hurry for?”
“The Master is going to use me today to build an important building that will house 175 orphaned children!” the work glove called over its shoulder barely breaking its stride, “I can’t wait to get started!”
“Wait a minute! I will help!” yelled Gary.
“You must have the Master’s hand work through you in order to help.” insisted the work glove.
“I do have the Master’s hand!” Gary lied, and puffed himself up full of air in order to look like he really did have the hand of the great Master inside of him.
At the work site the leather glove grabbed a hammer and got down to work. Bang! Bang! Bang! Never missing a stroke it hammered one nail after another quickly building the framework for the orphan home.
Not to be out done, Gary puffed himself up a little bigger, grabbed another hammer and heaved with all his might. To his joy, the hammer did rise up.
“Hey, look at the work gloves!” said two tiny mittens as they played in the nearby school yard, “I want to be just like them when I grow up!”
Filled with new confidence, as well as a lot of hot air, Gary wielded the heavy hammer above his head and took aim at a nail. “Bang!” The loud noise was not the noise of Gary pounding the nail into it’s target but the sound of Gary’s latex ripping!
“Pop! Pfsssst!” all of the air leaked out of Gary in a rush sending him flying through the air like a deflated balloon! “Pl-f-f-f-f-t!” Gary whizzed over the work site then landed, flat as a pancake, in a mud puddle at the feet of the leather work glove.
“Oh, I am so embarrassed!” Gary thought as he lie face down in the mud, “I can’t even bear to look up! Now everyone knows that I didn’t really have the Master’s hand…I was just puffed up with hot air! I think I will just lie here and never get up again!”
However, when Gary expected laughter, there was only silence, then the rough, tough, leather work glove gently reached down and peeled Gary up out of the mud.
“Gary,” the work glove said gently, “You can’t fake the Master’s hand. You must realize that you are quite powerless without the Master. You were made to be filled by the Master’s hand. We were all made to be filled by the Master’s hand. Without him our lives are empty and powerless.”
“You are right.” Gary said miserably, “No matter how hard I try, I always mess up, but I don’t want to just lie around on the shelf all the time. What can I do so the Master will come in and fill me and use me for something special?”
“All you have to do is ask Him, Gary,” said the work glove, “and allow him to come in and be in control of those useless floppy fingers of yours. He will do great things with them that you could never do on your own.”
“I will do it.” Said Gary, and he did.
Immediately the Master came and slipped his big powerful hand into the little latex glove. It wasn’t long before Gary was used to perform a surgery that saved the life of a little child. Gary watched in awe as the Master’s hand worked this wonderful miracle through him!
“Thank you!” Gary said to the Master, “I couldn’t do anything right without you, but now I can do great things with you at work inside of me! I don’t ever want to lie on the shelf again!”
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