Two weeks ago I was throwing hedge apple balls into the woods. Hedge apple is the common name for Osage-orange trees. These trees have an abundance of thorns on the stems. Small pieces of the stems breakoff and fall to the ground with the balls.
Of course I was doing this barefoot. We had a bumper crop of balls this year, several hundred around the tree I was working around. As I worked my way into a path in the woods, I stepped on a thorn. Then another and another. After pulling the third thorn from my foot, I decided I could leave the rest of the balls on the ground on the path in the woods for another time.
Two weeks later I was having an occasional sharp pain in my foot and a little swelling in the area. It was difficult for me to examine the spot of the growing discomfort, much less try to remove anything below the toughened skin in the area.
As the discomfort (occasional pain) continued to increase, I suspected there was a thorn in my foot and decided to see if I could remove it, though I could not see well in the area of concern. After probing around the area on the bottom of my foot, and breaking through the skin to the sensitive area below, I decided to try plan B: using butter held in place with a Band-Aid to soften the skin for the body to push the splinter, or in this case a thorn, out to the surface for easy removal.
A couple reactions I received from others while waiting for the thorn to surface:
“Why wouldn’t you go to the immediate care center to get it taken care of?”
“See, going barefoot is dangerous.”
It took three days for the thorn to surface.
This situation is reflective of basic beliefs and actions one takes in life. My basic beliefs in this situation include:
- A lot of little things don’t matter, and will resolve themselves if left alone. I considered this a small issue and I believed it would resolve itself. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
- It needs to be a serious condition before I go to a doctor or seek medical services. I believe the body is very capable of healing itself. I do not care to spend my time in a medical care facility for personal attention. I have confidence my life experiences will alert me when a medical situation is beyond my ability to care for my physical well-being.
- Home remedies are generally successful to resolve minor issues. I do not know how many people are aware of the effectiveness of this technique to remove splinters. There are countless other home remedies I am not aware of, and would seek out before consulting a medical practitioner.
As related to a couple of my recent blogs, this is validation how what we believe impacts our decisions. I am not trying to convince anyone I made the best decisions in this situation. Simply demonstrating the choices I made are connected to my beliefs.
I suspect how I handled this matter is contrary to how most people would handle it. My children all attest I would seldom take them to a doctor for medical attention.
Being a person in the minority is not good, nor bad.
Why someone is in the minority is. It depends on the seriousness of the issue and what is the Truth about options under consideration.
One Christian Advantage is: a Biblical worldview aligned with the Truths of God, will help us discern what is important in life.
As we measure the impact of a current situation in life, in light of eternity, we realize: people are more important than things, God owns it all, character is more important than results, etc.
When our priorities are closely aligned with God, it is more difficult for others to stir our anger, take the joy out of our life, entice us to participate in sinful behaviors, etc.
Life is much more enjoyable as we focus on what God is teaching us, on considering what God wants us to do each day/week/month/year, on seeing where God is in our life.
I encourage you to surround yourself with individuals who keep an eternal perspective in mind with every decision they make.
When every decision includes a God perspective, life becomes a lot simpler.
