Metal

A trip to Target this afternoon brought me a real pain in the thumb. No, thumb was not a typo, although I guess that is kind of a strange thing to say. I'll explain.

My kids love to dress up for Halloween - the little ones do anyway. With Matthew turning eleven this year, he is really not so much into costumes as much anymore. His costume for this year will consist of a name tag with the name "Matthew" written on it. He has decided to go as himself. I guess we will have to wait and see if he gets any candy.

As we pulled into the Halloween aisle at Target, I grabbed the cart to move forward a little, and I felt a sharp pain in my thumb. Blood began to pour as I tried to collect my thoughts. Pain and blood . . . this can't be good. I looked back at the cart to try and find what was so sharp - but there was really nothing there. Hmmm . . . just an area on the metal that had some uneven parts - could that have been what butchered my finger?

Blood continued to pour down my hand, and while I squeezed my thumb it managed to get all over then other hand too. I asked a Target associate for a band-aid. It seemed like an eternity before she returned. By this time, there was blood on the floor, and all over my hands. I felt a bit faint.

After removing some of the red stuff, I could see that a piece of metal was lodged in my finger. Great, I thought. Hospital . . . needles . . . my head began to spin. I thought about how I would get there, and if I would need to get a Tetnis shot. Ouch!!

I was led to the employee bathroom, where I proceeded to wash my hands and work on getting the object out. A sterile pair of tweezers was handed to me, and I worked on my thumb for a good five minutes. My hopes began to drop, with thoughts of waiting rooms and stitches.

I decided to give it one more tug, and out came the shared piece of metal. I said a praise to God, and we all had a celebration in the bathroom. We even talked to the tiny piece of metal like it was alive or something.

After I was all bandaged up, I was escorted into one of the manager's offices to fill out some paperwork. I'm sure it had to do with the possibility of a lawsuit or something. After we finished with the paperwork, we headed back to gory alley.

After we finished our purchases, I stopped by Steph's house to have her take a look. She is the physician in our family. Any time I have any kind of a medical question, I always call on Steph. She fixed me up with some beta dyne, and after a short visit we were on our way.

I type tonight with a thumb all wrapped in gauze. Stephanie's advice was to keep an eye on my finger, and go and get a shot if it appears to be the slightest bit infected.

Quite an eventful trip to Target this afternoon. I thought it would be fun to make the Halloween aisle a little bit more gory I guess. I was so grateful when that little piece of metal popped out. Praises poured out of my heart - praises of relief.

It's in the ordinary moments, big and small that God is watching. He cares about the deep and hidden wounds just as much as the visible blood spurting splinter type.

I felt very much loved by God through this little episode. God is also nurturing some bigger wounds on the inside tonight. It is such a comfort to know that He is always there.