Touch of the Master’s Hand

An old violin sits silent on the auction block. Battered, war-worn, its varnish cracked and its strings slack, it fetches only a pittance from the indifferent crowd. But when an old man lifts the bow and plays, music pours forth so transcendent that the instrument fetches a king's ransom. This is the enduring power of "Touch of the Master's Hand" - a poem that asks what any of us might become if seen, truly seen, by the one who made us. Myra Brooks Welch, wheelchair-bound by arthritis and unable to play the organ she loved, wrote this verse by pressing pencil erasers against typewriter keys through agonizing pain. She knew intimately what it meant to be dismissed as broken, worthless, past usefulness. Yet her poem proclaims that those whom the world discards are precious in the hands of the Master. Written in accessible verse that has moved millions, this is not mere sentiment but hard-won wisdom from a woman who transformed suffering into song.