Our hands were about the same size, but mine were flushed and hot with rheumatoid arthritis, bubbled with wrinkles. Hers were smooth and soft and eleven years-old.

From the moment I raised my sheet music, the girl sitting next to me in choir had noticed my hands: the way they trembled slightly and the way they used the chair in front of me to shift weight off my broken foot.

I must have seemed quite The Ancient to her.

But I didn’t care.

I didn’t care because she cared.

From the minute we stopped singing and started listening to the church service last Sunday, the girl rubbed my hand. That’s right. She silently reached across my lap, took hold of the fingers closest to her and began to gently massage my inflamed knuckles and trace my purple veins.

For another hour or more, as the service wore on, she focused intently on that right hand; I could  feel her awe and wonder, and wondered how much she knew about me. She certainly couldn’t know that I had loved a husband for 38 years, cared for a severely disabled daughter for 35, raised four children, rocked dozens of babies, cooked thousands of meals, wrote millions of words, and caressed hands upon hands upon hands upon hands — how many hands — that were hurting the way mine hurt now.

Yet somehow she knew. At least, I wanted to believe that she knew, through my hand, the details of a lifetime.

And that thought — the belief that another woman, though only a dozen years into her own life, mystically understood, honored, even reverenced, my nearly six decades of living — revolutionized me. I cried. As the tears flowed, I didn’t bother to brush them away because I was, in those minutes, my truest, real-est self.

No less than God was in that little girl, and I knew he knew me.

My heart skipped a beat at that realization —- and then raced into this one:

Isn’t that what women are uniquely positioned for and meant to do in large part: understand, sympathize, validate, and inspire one another? Why don’t we do it more often and with more confidence in our gifts, in our offering? 

The answer is obvious. We are so pre-occupied with our own pain, puzzles, and predicaments in this crazy world that we ignore or downplay our feminine impulses. Too often we pass-by or postpone clasping  (literally or figuratively) the inflamed, trembling hand right beside ours. Isn’t that sad, even tragic? In our hurry and fear and digital interactions, we’re losing the chance to feel God, to be God. And when we withdraw or ball up our own hurting hand, we rob a caring woman of her chance to bring out the divine in herself, and in us.

It wouldn’t take very much to reverse the trend. No great sacrificial acts required; not even any words. It took only a trickle of effort on the part of my young savior to produce a river of relief in me, the lucky object of her love.

I invite you to do better for the women in your life. Here is an approach that has never failed in my twenty-plus years of striving to serve and mentor other women:

1. Slow down, stop, get off the computer or mobile device, and really look into the faces of the women around you: not profile pics, but the living faces. What do you see there, really? Are her eyes bloodshot? Is her brow furrowed? Does her head droop while she rubs her own neck?
2. Touch her if appropriate. Many women (like me) appreciate touch. If she’s one of those, put your arm around her shoulder, or through her elbow, or hold her hand. And if a sincere friend attempts to do the same for you and it speaks to you, let her.
3. Ask her sincere questions. Tell her you want to understand. And as you ask, look into her eyes. Remember, you are not reaching out to her worldly, counterfeit self but to her soul.
4. Listen without judgement or self-application or advice up your sleeve. Listening with love like that goes far beyond language. I have spent many hours sitting beside women whose native tongue was so foreign to my own, that I could barely comprehend their English, but listening with love (focusing on all of the above) allowed me to empathize with them and feel edified by them.
5. Repeat to yourself  these three little words as you look, touch, and listen: “I-love-you.” This is the most potent approach of all when it comes to serving and bonding with other women. Your experience together will be profoundly affected. I promise. My little angel, for instance, was communicating “I love you” (without words!), and her unsolicited compassion filled my empty-barrel-of-a-soul to the brim…

…As church and choir ended last Sunday (and just as I thought I could not possibly contain another drop of her love), she leapt from her seat to fetch my cane and scooter. Then, before I could say thank you, the girl-that-was-God flew away with “Have a good day!”

Love is the medium through which value is conveyed.