Being Left-handed

On Saturday, I tried to be left-handed. It is difficult to switch hands from the norm. I didn’t attempt to use an unfamiliar hand for something that might be critical, like signing my name on a check, but I did try to consciously operate as a left-hander for the day. I ate my morning cereal using my left hand. I brushed my teeth using my left hand. When I sipped water, I switched the way that I cupped my hands. That felt really weird. When I clasped my hands to pray, I thought about adjusting my fingers, and putting my right-hand thumb on the top of my other thumb, but that seems like what a right-hander might do naturally. There are a lot of things that I already do, favoring my left hand. Maybe I already pray left-handed. Then again, when I place my hands together without intertwining my fingers, it’s my right hand that goes on top. Okay, so where am I going with this. Why would I want to change to a left-hander? Because, by all accounts, that is what I should have been!


When I was a baby, I had a tendency to use my left hand. Of course, I don’t remember this, but in those days, parents were encouraged to “help” their children become right-handed. I try not to blame my mom and dad, but I can fault the doctors and experts of the day, for suggesting that parents change the biological tendencies of their children from being left-handed to right-handed. I was supposed to be left-handed. My body and my brain were wired to function that way. I wonder if I would have been half as uncoordinated as I was when I was little, if I would have been allowed to be left-handed?

Some of the articles I’ve read on the internet suggest that this forced change upon children may have been related to stuttering. Thankfully, I did not stutter. But, I was uncoordinated, and my handwriting was terrible. That is the only thing that I ever received an ‘L’ (Low) in on my report card in elementary school. I suppose you can't cry over spilled milk, but if I were allowed to be left-handed, I probably would not have been so clumsy as to knock the glass over.

Somebody else had an interesting theory that Jesus and God (though one and the same for discussion another time) were left-handers, because the Bible says that Jesus sits at the right hand of God. The writer reasoned that this was so they didn’t bump elbows when they were eating. It was a humorous attempt to glorify left-handers, but maybe not so far off as one might think. The Bible does say there will be feasts in heaven. I like a lot of different foods down here, and I can’t wait to sample some of the dishes to be served in eternity!