I raise my hands

Bobby R. Henry, Sr.

I raise my hands

… 2 Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You for help, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary…7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him..”

        Psalms 28:2-7 (NASV)  Please read the entire 28 Psalm

By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.

     In memory of all those who have “Raised their hands” in the symbolic gesticulation of surrendering and giving up the ghost, remember death is God’s way of calling us home no matter how we leave this place.

By the time that you read this, we would have placed some people into new leadership positions and aligned others for hopeful quests.

As the tear gases settle and the tears yet still flow for the pitiful treatment suffered by an almost broken people, we raise our hands not in submission to man but in our faith in God.

I raise my hands free from weapons and unballed fists in a sign that’s non-threatening and it makes me vulnerable. I even drop to my knees in a position to beg and my purposes are to gravel you until you recognize and see me as a human-just like you.

From all of your unconstructive indications since our unwanted voyage to this country, you have blatantly shown no intentions of ever being on familiar terms with our God-given rights. I raise my hands in protest but not in a pugilist stance of defense nor to offer any offense for your sticking blows, but humbly ask that you see me as a man.

I raise my hands to wipe away my tears that have caused me to bleed through eyes of mounting detestation of a people devoid of any understanding outside of their diluted lives.

I raise my hands to tear down walls that falsely incarcerate me and to lay foundations that will support houses of hopes for my children and my children’s children.

I raise my hands to reach up and grab hold to hands that will pull me from the quicksand of despair.

You have tried to eradicate me as if I were some plague carrying insect designed to wipeout your ill-fated kind.

I’ve survived the Middle Passage stacked like sardines in the hull of slave ships, surrounded by death, bathed in sicknesses, fed with hopelessness and drank the waters from the fountain of hate and yet God saw fit that I would live to tell the tale; and you think that you can stop God’s plan.

I raise my hands for you to scrutinize and discover my human form.

I raise my hands to show you that I am still alive.

I raise my hands to offer you a hand to understanding that if we die you die.

Even though I raise my hands in the air you shoot me down, insinuating that you just don’t care!

Now, all that is left for me to do is to raise my hands to God asking Him to forgive you; “For they know not what they do.”

“God I raise my hands to you confessing all my sins and humbly surrendering to You and only You. Knowing that my trials here on this earth are but my stepping stones along the pathways to my eternal home.” Amen

     WHEN YOU RAISE YOUR HANDS TO GOD IN SUBMISSION YOU ARE FREE