Being one of the minority of the population who is left handed I was delighted to find the Bible has a left handed hero, called Ehud. His fascinating story is found in Judges 3:12-30. It has all the hall marks of a spy thriller or a murder mystery.Apart from it taking me a while to learn to peel potatoes and a tendency to smudge my work if I am writing with ink being left handed has never really been a problem for me. It does irritate my husband sometimes that if he uses the computer after me he has to move the mouse to the right side.
However in history left handed people have often been the target of prejudice. In most European languages, including English, "right" is used not only to signify direction but also a sense of what is "correct", "authority" and "justice". In German, "links" means "left" as well as "sly" and "devious". In China the left side is the bad side.
Perhaps the most palpable modern example of prejudice came with the famous 1960s BBC TV test card which showed a girl playing noughts and crosses with her toy clown. When it was realised that she was holding the piece of chalk with her left hand, the story goes that BBC executives had the picture reversed to make her right-handed.
Until relatively recently, such was the prejudice against left-handers that children who displayed this trait were often forced to use their right hand and punished by having their left hand tied to their chair to stop them from using it.
Perhaps the most palpable modern example of prejudice came with the famous 1960s BBC TV test card which showed a girl playing noughts and crosses with her toy clown. When it was realised that she was holding the piece of chalk with her left hand, the story goes that BBC executives had the picture reversed to make her right-handed.
Until relatively recently, such was the prejudice against left-handers that children who displayed this trait were often forced to use their right hand and punished by having their left hand tied to their chair to stop them from using it.
It is unclear from the reading of Judges whether Ehud was simply left handed or that he was maimed in is right hand. Either way the writer seems to suggest that Ehud was perceived to be a person with a disability, who was not much of a threat and who was not much use. However whilst the enemies of Israel at that time completely under-estimated him God had no such prejudice and he chose Ehud to lead his nation to a glorious victory.
I love the fact that the lables, the stigma, the limitations that society puts upon people, do not affect God's willingness to choose them or his ability to use them.
I'm off to do my ironing, ambidextrously!
God bless
Carol
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