"If those stitches start to bother you, just snip the ends of them off."
Now, two days later, I feel like an asphalt grinder has been at work on the inside of my mouth. while a Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robot has been punching away at my jaw. And just to make the deal a little sweeter, a spider is attached to the roof of my mouth, his wiry legs left dangling against my tongue. I don't have scissors trusty enough to disarm them.
So there... I've said my piece and now I will say more, because that's what I generally do. Sorry.
This afternoon Dave needed me to follow him to the repair shop to get the brakes on my car fixed. As I was driving along Main street, my gums burning, my head pounding, my jaw aching, and that spider dangling, I was struck with the realization that my feet are feeling relatively good. You may or may not know that I live with peripheral neuropathy from a frightening bout with Guillain Barre Syndrome ten years ago. My feet always hurt. But today, they don't. Well... if I let myself focus on them I remember they do... but relative to more prominent pain, they don't.
Then, as I drove on, I realized that I do not have a broken arm, or a heart condition, or cancer... at least that I know of. I am not paralyzed, and I have all my limbs, and every one of my fingernails and toenails is intact. And, even though I am prone to them, I do not have an ingrown toenail.
I am experimenting on the Word today. I believe all things are designed to give me experience.
I cannot NOT learn.
And my Lord is with me, even in my relative discomfort.
I am training my brain to differentiate between pain and discomfort. And I am trying to train it to handle both with grace and faith.
(But these spider-legged stitches dangling from the roof of my mouth... I have less patience with them!)
I am reminded today that my troubles and pains and sorrows sit in beautiful contrast to the blessings in my life. Hooray, for instance, that I even have teeth!
Onward, Christian soldier!