What is in your hand?

Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” - Exodus 4: 2-3

Addie Bee is a woman who has used very well what she had in her hands. Addie grew up in a dysfunctional home where both parents were alcoholics, so she was placed in a foster home. Wanting a doll of her own to love, Addie saved ninety cents, walked to the five-and-dime and picked out a black doll she named Bessie. But the foster father, perhaps in a rage of discrimination, discovered the doll and smashed its head with his foot. Addie had a funeral for the doll and buried it under the house.

Many years later, the church she attended asked her to dress some old dolls as Christmas gifts for underprivileged children. Addie’s passion for dolls was again ignited. She discovered that what she had in her hands was the ability to restore dolls and give them to hurting kids who would love them as she had once loved her doll Bessie.

Addie has refurbished some 272 dolls thus far and earned the nickname “Busy Bee.” She refers to her dolls as her “babies.” The thanks she gets is the smile of a child whose eyes tell the whole story.

When she needed spare parts for dolls, she wrote to the Syndee Doll Company and asked them if they had a few extra arms and legs she could have. It just happened the doll company was getting rid of some of their stock, and the sewing machine repairman left there with a van full of spare doll parts that filled Addie’s garage.

When God asks, “What do you have in your hands?” Addie may well answer, “A doll!” What do you have in your hands?