I Have This Thing With Hands
During every session, at some point, I'll ask to photograph them. Grandma's hands holding the baby's. A couple's hands intertwined. A dad's rough, calloused hands next to his daughter's small ones. Hands praying. Hands working. Hands that have loved hard and lived harder.
People always seem a little surprised when I ask. "My hands?" they'll say, like I'm asking to photograph the least interesting part of them.
But here's what I see when I look at hands: I see stories.
I see the mom whose hands have wiped tears and packed lunches and held foreheads to check for fevers a thousand times. I see the grandfather whose hands built the house his family still lives in, who can fix anything but whose fingers shake a little now. I see the teenager whose hands are still figuring out what they're meant to hold onto.
Hands tell the truth in a way faces sometimes don't. They show the wear. The work. The years of serving and giving and doing.
And when I think about hands through a Christian lens? Man, it gets even deeper.
Because we're called to be God's hands and feet in the world. We're called to serve. To give. To reach out and pull people close. To work with our hands in ways that honor Him.
Colossians 3:23 says "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men."
Your hands have been doing that work. Maybe you didn't think about it in those terms. Maybe you were just showing up, doing what needed to be done, getting through the day. But those hands? They've been kingdom work all along.
The hands that held your baby through sleepless nights? That was worship.
The hands that cooked meals for your family even when you were exhausted? That was service.
The hands that reached out to comfort a friend, to help a neighbor, to give when you didn't have much to give? That was being Christ to someone who needed Him.
Your hands have been an extension of God's love in the world, whether you realized it or not.
I think about Jesus washing His disciples' feet. God incarnate, on His knees, using His hands to serve. That's the model. That's what we're called to. Not just big, flashy acts of service, but the daily, humble, often unnoticed work of using our hands to love people well.
And parents? Your hands have been doing that for years.
Hands that buckled car seats and tied shoes and held them when they were scared. Hands that pointed them toward Christ, literally—hands folded together teaching them to pray, hands holding the Bible as you read to them at bedtime, hands lifted in worship showing them what it looks like to surrender to God.
Proverbs 31:20 talks about the virtuous woman: "She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy."
That's you. Your hands have been open. Reaching. Giving. Serving your family, your community, the people God placed in your path.
And it shows.
I can see it in the calluses. The worn wedding ring. The way your hands move when you touch your kids—gentle but confident, the muscle memory of years of care.
There's a reason Scripture talks so much about hands. God formed Adam with His hands. He carved the Ten Commandments with His finger. Jesus touched the sick and the broken with His hands and healed them.
Hands are how we interact with the world. They're how we create and build and connect. They're how we physically demonstrate love.
And they tell stories that words can't capture.
I photograph a grandmother's hands holding her newborn great-grandbaby, and I'm documenting generations of love. I'm capturing hands that survived the Depression, that worked in fields and factories, that raised children and buried loved ones and kept going. Hands that prayed through it all.
I photograph a dad's hands with his son's, and I see the difference—one set weathered and strong, the other still smooth and uncertain. But I also see the future in those young hands. The potential for them to become hands that build and serve and love like his father's did.
I photograph hands folded in prayer, and I'm reminded that these are the same hands that will rise from prayer and go do the work. Prayer and action. Faith and works. It's all connected.
James 2:17 says "So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
Your hands prove your faith isn't dead. They prove you're not just talking about love and service and grace—you're living it. You're doing it. You're being God's hands in the world.
And that matters.
That's worth documenting.
Because one day, those hands will be gone. Your kids won't be able to hold them anymore. Your grandkids won't remember exactly how they felt.
But they'll have the images. They'll have proof of hands that loved them well. Hands that worked hard and sacrificed much. Hands that pointed them toward Jesus not just with words but with action.
Psalm 90:17 says "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!"
That's my prayer when I photograph hands. That God would establish the work. That these images would be a testament to faithfulness. That future generations would look at these hands and see what it means to serve and love and live for something bigger than yourself.
So yeah, I have a thing with hands.
Because they matter. They tell the truth. They reveal who we really are beneath all the posed smiles and carefully chosen outfits.
They show the work. The love. The grace.
And they remind us that we're called to be God's hands in the world—reaching out, holding on, letting go when it's time, and trusting that the same hands that formed us are still holding all of it together.
Your hands have done good work. Kingdom work. Work that matters.
And that's worth capturing.
