MORE CUTS AND SCARS

A while back, I wrote a post about several times I had accidentally cut myself. Well, in case you were wondering, those were not the only times I’ve been cut. I want to share a few more today and hopefully, you’ll be entertained for a few minutes as you delve a little deeper into my life lessons.

I had been working at my new job for just a few weeks packing vinyl siding in boxes as it came off a conveyor belt. Sometimes a piece of trash would get in the vinyl somewhere along the way and it would make a hole in the piece of siding. When that happened we would have to quickly saw the piece of siding off behind the hole with a hacksaw and feed it back into the track between the rollers.

One night, a huge hole formed so I grabbed the hacksaw and cut the piece of siding as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough to get it back into the rollers in time. I had to try it again so I grabbed the quick-moving siding with my left hand and the saw with my right hand and started sawing again. After only two strokes, I stopped. To my shock, the second stroke had cut my thumb almost completely off.

I ran to the restroom and washed my thumb in the sink. I could see that the saw had cut a trench in my thumb as wide as the teeth on the blade. There was only a small section of the nail and flesh left, and I was in a lot of pain.

I went to the emergency room and got it patched up. Then I spent the next week at work pushing a broom for twelve hours. That was worse than the accident itself. I finally was able to start doing more after a week and soon I was back to regular work.

Several years later, I picked up a small, metal pipe at work to toss it in the scrap truck. As I tossed it, I simply pushed it off the tip of my middle finger to watch it flip into the trailer as I had several times before. I didn’t get to watch it flip that time because as it left my hand, it took a piece of my finger with it. There was a metal burr on the end of the pipe and it sliced right into my flesh. More pain and more bandages, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

I have had some pretty bad scrapes and cuts and cracks. A few of them have been on, or around my head, but not many directly on my face. There was that one time, though. My wife’s dad had a camper he was using as a storage shed. He had built a deck around two sides of it. We lived just down the road.

My oldest son and I were doing something there and I stepped up onto the deck which was only a few feet high. The sun was setting in the sky, and I was facing West so it was shining right in my eyes. Just as both feet hit the deck, I came to a quick stop. It was a hard stop, too. My face had hit the end of a TV antenna pole that was propped up on the deck at about a thirty-degree angle. It struck me at the top of my nose right between my eyes.

My vision became blurry for a minute or so. When I felt to see how bad it was, then I felt the blood and I felt the pain arrive. When I looked at my hand it was bloody. I told my son we needed to go before I passed out. We made it home and I cleaned it up and got to feeling better, but I still have the scar to remind me of that painful day.  

Let me give you one more for the road. I was picking a few things up off the floor at work. I don’t remember what it was but there were several of them. I think it might have been trash or screws or washers. I don’t know. I guess it really doesn’t matter because what happened next is what I want to tell you about.

When I bent over to pick up that last, whatever, I would never have imagined what happened next could even be possible. As I raised back up, my head was abruptly stopped by the sharp corner of an electrical panel. I hit it hard, and it cut deep. I think it took three stitches to close the wound. I’m not sure about that either. The whole thing is a bit blurry. Anyway, I feel I was blessed in all of these situations because each one could have been worse. I truly believe that old saying, “It could always be worse.”

I feel fortunate to have experienced all I have in my life, and I’d like to think that I learned valuable lessons from each experience. If nothing else, hopefully, I at least learned not to do the same thing again.

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THE DAY THEY ALL FORGOT

Last week, we were watching Veggie Tales with our grandson and Jr. Asparagus was having a bad day. It was evening, and in spite of all his subtle hints, nobody had wished him a happy birthday. There was not even a hint of a surprise party or cake and ice cream. Not even so much as a cookie. It seemed everybody had forgotten that today was his birthday.

After his mother tried to comfort him, with what she thought was wrong, he finally broke down and told her the real reason he was upset. When she broke the news to him, he was shocked. Today wasn’t his birthday after all. It was a leap year and his birthday will not be until tomorrow. That reminded me of the time something similar happened to me. It wasn’t a leap year, but my whole family actually did forget my birthday.

It was the morning of my 12th birthday. I woke up all excited. I was another year older. Actually, I was only a day older, but it had been a year since my last birthday. I was used to not getting a lot of presents so I wasn’t expecting to. That never bothered me too much, but I was at least expecting some cheerful “happy birthday” wishes from my family.

My sisters and I were out of school for the Summer and we were spending a few days with our parents and our little sister at their house. Our grandmother was there with us and she had never forgotten my birthday before, but there was no festive salutation from her either.

So many times I’ve seen the scenario, on TV and in movies, where everybody pretends to have forgotten someone’s birthday while secretly planning a surprise party for them. My family wasn’t anything like that, so it never even entered my mind. They had simply forgotten.

I was hurt deeply. I was sad, but I was also a little angry about it, too. I decided I would just wait and see how long it would take them to remember, or if they would at all. I wasn’t going to say anything about it that day, or ever. I must not be that important to them if none of them could even remember that today was the 12th anniversary of the day I came into the world. I doubt that I was that philosophical, but that about sums up how I was feeling at the time.

As the hours slowly crept along, it became harder and harder to remain quiet about it. Soon, it was all I could do to keep from shouting out loud, “HOW COULD ALL OF YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN MY BIRTHDAY!?” I resisted the urge until noon. I had to say something to someone. Finally, when we were alone, I told my sob story to my sister who I was closest to. I asked her not to say anything to anyone else, and I truly meant it. I still wanted to see how long it would be, but she told them.

They all came and said they were sorry and wished me a “Happy Birthday.” My mom got busy baking me a cake. I don’t remember any gifts or cards, but I remember feeling a lot better after all the attention everybody gave me. I felt bad about all the negative thoughts and feelings I had for half a day.

I have since realized that people forget things sometimes. I have forgotten plenty in my lifetime, even some very important things. It happens, and I’ve forgotten family members' birthdays, several times over the years. What we have to realize is, just because someone forgets a special occasion in our lives, it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t care about us. The older we get, the more responsibility we have, and the more responsibility we have, the more stress we have, and the more stress we have the more likely we are to forget something. After all, we’re only human. The good news is, our Heavenly Father has a great memory. He loves us with a love that is so pure and deep that we cannot truly understand it. In Isaiah 49, he tells us he could never forget us.

Isaiah 49:15-16  
15  Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.  
16  Behold, I have engraved you upon the palms of my hands;

The Father loves us so much that he gave his only Son to take our punishment for our sins and to die in our place (John 3:16). Jesus loves us so much that he was willing to do it. God tells us that we should love each other as strongly (John 13:34, Ephesians 5:2). If everyone had that kind of love for others, just imagine what a wonderful world this could be.

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THAT I AM

In Exodus chapter 3, we read the story of Moses and the burning bush. God told him to go to Egypt and rescue the children of Israel from slavery. Moses asked God, “when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they will say to me, What is his name? What shall I tell them?”

Exodus 3:14 
14 And God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, This is what you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.

I remember reading this when I was young and thinking it just didn’t sound right. It sounded like it was written wrong. When I got older and had access to different versions of the Bible I noticed a lot of them replaced THAT with WHO so it read “I AM WHO I AM.” Well, that doesn’t sound any better to me.

At the end of verse 14, God says “Tell them I AM has sent you.” He said his name is I AM. Looking back at the first part then, we can see “I AM WHO I AM” is not a good translation. In fact, it changes the whole meaning of the verse.

He was saying, I am THAT “I AM” who your ancestors knew and served. (Exodus 3:6, 15)

Suppose there is a famous man named Rocky Alverson, and we have never seen him before, but we’ve heard a lot about him. When we meet him, and he tells us he is Rocky Alverson, we might ask him this famous question, “THE Rocky Alverson?” That’s what God was telling Moses. “I am THAT I AM who they have heard of. I AM is my name. I am That I AM, or The I AM.” That’s why we sing songs about The great I AM. That’s his name.

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https://teddylynn.wordpress.com

© 2015 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @ 
https://www.amazon.com/Teddy-Lynn/e/B01MZDB6L6