I went exploring the woods this morning in my new neighborhood and pricked my thumb on a thorn.
1.) Who knew there were thorn trees in Missouri?!
2.) I think I may have the princess-and-the-pea syndrome. I'm so unused to sharp pain it seriously bothered me the rest of the walk.
On the other hand, I'm beginning to think it may have been a grace. A little object lesson. Not too painful, but just painful enough. We reach out to grasp things we think will help, as I thought the angled tree limb would help me cross the creek, but if it's not what God would have us grasp (only what is wholesome, noble, courageous, and beautiful) it could harm more than help. I didn't cross the creek. My thumb was aching and the sun seemed less shiny and the mud muddier.
There is some writing I want to do today - some "creek crossing". I need an aware spirit and a ready mind. But over the last 24 hours my attention has been pulled, without too much resistance from me I'm afraid, to "comforting" things that in reality, not being God's for me to grasp hold of, may actually dull my sharpness for today's task. I have been pricked, and like the fairy-tale Beauty my niece loves dressing up as, the thorn's poison might lull me to a dull sleep. How can I write with a slumbering soul? (To be fair, I think she pricked her finger on a spindle, not a thorn :)
What we grasp onto with our hearts, even in the most cursory of ways, can become a brilliant tool or a stumbling block. A rose, or its thorn. Today's prick reminded me of that. My thumb is amazingly sore - perhaps because the thorn went in right over the joint. I don't want the same to happen within my soul. Thank you, God, for Your corrections - they are life to me!
And hmmm, just in case the thorn trees in Missouri are even stranger than they seem...
3.) If I suddenly look very drowsy, somebody please come kiss me. I'd rather be either alive or dead, than asleep! :)
Dec 21, 2011
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