I never thought I would get words to live by from a palm reader in the French Quarter of New Orleans, but I have heard her voice in my head many times over the last couple of decades.
Years ago, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, my friend Nancy and I felt compelled to take action to help with the rebuilding of New Orleans. While working at our respective radio stations in Connecticut, we solicited for donations and volunteers to make a trip down to Louisiana to join in the reconstruction efforts.
One night, the group decided to blow off some steam and get some food in the French Quarter. After dinner, we walked around and saw a neon sign advertising a palm reader. Even though I was pretty skeptical, I agreed when the group wanted to go in to try it out. I figured, if nothing else, it would be a funny story to share on the air when we got home.
When it was my turn, I walked through the beaded curtains to a room decorated exactly like you would imagine. Brightly colored scarves, beads, crystals, satin throw pillows, candles burning and a woman seated behind a small round table in the center. She motioned to the chair across from her and smiled brightly.
“You are here to learn about your future…” (Duh.)
“…but you don’t believe that I will truly be able to see it for you…” (I am sure that my body language and facial expression was screaming this at her.)
“…let’s see if I can prove you wrong. Let me see your hands.” (Okay, lady, give it your best shot.)
Normally, I am a talker – I can and will make small talk with just about anyone, but I didn’t want to give her ANY information that might help her to con me. So, instead, I was quiet while she looked at my hands. There was something very intimate about sitting in the quiet with a stranger analyzing all the lines and callouses on my palms. I felt myself relax into the moment and softened my shoulders, as she turned my hands over in hers to see every aspect of them.
After a few minutes, she took a deep breath and sat back to look into my eyes. “You have already seen great sadness in your life and overcome much even though you are young.” Generic…but true. I had already lost my mom and gotten sober by this point, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I just nodded and stayed quiet.
She took another moment of contemplation inspecting my hands and said, “but you haven’t received all of the gifts that the universe has to offer, my dear. Why are you blocking yourself off from those gifts?”
Now, she had my attention, so I asked, “What do you mean?”
“Look at your hands. Really look at them. See the shapes, the curves, the lines. Those are unique to you. The universe has gifts designed exactly for you to fit those exact shapes, but it can’t give them to you if your hands aren’t empty. What are you holding on to that you need to let go?”
“Even if you hold onto something as small as a grain of sand in your hand, the gift won’t truly fit. Do you feel like you are waiting for something that should have been here by now?”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s because your hands aren’t truly empty and ready to receive. You need to let those things go that you cling to out of comfort, or fear, or habit, and prepare yourself for the gifts, my dear. When you find yourself in a season of waiting and wondering, ask yourself, ‘Are my hands empty?’”
My eyes went wide. A list of things I needed to let go of popped into my mind, but before I could share any of them, she continued.
“Truly opening your hands and leaving them empty is a leap of faith, and the universe will respond. It may not happen on the timeline you have in mind, but it can never happen if your hands aren’t empty to begin with.”
After dropping that truth bomb, she went on to share with me some details about my love line, life line and fate line – but I don’t remember any of those. I thanked her when she was done and went to join the crew outside.
As we worked our way down Bourbon Street that night, her words rolled over and over in my head, and I made decisions about how to let go of a few things and people that I had been holding onto out of comfort, fear and habit.
It turns out, she was right.
The more I work to keep my hands empty of the things that I think I need, the more that God is able to give me the things I really need. It’s definitely not easy, and often, whatever it is that I am letting go has claw marks all over it before I can seriously give it up. When I let go of expectations of how things “should” be or what I “should” have or who I “should” be with and open myself up to the gifts that are waiting for me, life always turns out better than I could have planned.
But first, my hands have to be empty.
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