A lesson learned at 3am

This morning at 3am I was wide awake. It was not worry that was keeping me awake, it wasn't even the baby inside my belly that seems to be rolling all over the place. Instead, it was pain! This past weekend my Mom and I made beautiful cornice boards for my kitchen and living room. But the ones made for the living room lacked something, it needed more! Yesterday we found some beautiful beads and added them to the cornice boards. Now they are complete and look fabulous! We had some extra beads left over so my Mom thought we should hot glue them to my two lamps in the living room. It was a tag team effort and my effort left me with a horrible burn from the glue gun. We have probably all experienced those burns that cause an instant bubble to appear which later pops and water drains out. But this burn skipped the bubble! The glue that my finger stuck to was so hot that I instantly ripped the glue off the front of my finger and screamed! When I ripped the glue off, it also ripped the skin off. Instantly my finger was draining some sort of fluid and it burned in the worst way I could ever imagine. My three and a half year old realized that I had quite the boo boo and offered a band-aid. I thanked him but declined the band-aid until this morning at 3am I realized how the air hitting my burn/wound only doubled my pain. I was thinking it needed air but it actually needed something to cover it! So out of bed I go to find the nearest Spiderman or Dora band-aid and maybe some ointment. The only thing I could find was Creamy Vaseline and one Dora The Explorer band-aid-aid. The Creamy Vaseline said that it worked for many things and one of those being burns. After applying the Vaseline, I almost screamed again. The pain was at a level 10! And I know what a level 10 is and it's the same level I have felt right before the doctor gives me an epidural! But no epidural for a burn! Then came the band-aid and finally after a few minutes, the pain subsided and eventually I fell back asleep. Today the burn continues to hurt pretty bad. I laid in bed last night praying for every single burn patient in the world. I can't imagine anything more painful than what burn victims suffer. Actually their suffering gets worse while trying to seek medical treatment. The process a burn victim goes through at a burn unit is unfathomable and I will never understand why they can't put someone asleep while doing so much to a person!! When someone is taken to a burn unit, they often go through something called debridement or skin scraping. It hurts to even think about! But it is a must have step in the process to recovering from burns. Even though my burn was just a place on my finger, my entire hand throbbed early this morning and I could actually feel my finger pulsating from the pain. I was thankful it was just my finger. The thought of my entire body feeling that way is unimaginable. My hot gluing accident was something that happened in one second. Maybe it was unavoidable based on the position of my fingers as I pressed the trim of beads onto the lamp. Something that happened in a second has caused hours of pain.

So many times I say or do things in a second without thinking about the after effect. I have been spending lots of time reading Proverbs lately. This morning at 3am while I lay in bed with a throbbing hand and finger, the Holy Spirit brought to mind much of what I had read the day before. Proverbs 11:17 Your own soul is nourished when you are kind, but you destroy yourself when you are cruel. Is my soul being nourished? How often am I destroying myself based on my words and actions? I took inventory. I thought about my friends, family, the blogging world. I thought about my conversations that no one hears. And what about this one? 22A woman who is beautiful but lacks discretion is like a gold ring in a pig's snout. Now who wants to see a pig with a gold ring in it's snout? Exactly! The gold ring is useless in a pig's snout. I spend lots of time trying to look pretty. But am I really "pretty?" Do others think I am beautiful? Not only on the outside but the inside?

I don't want to live in a constant state of regret. Just today I did something with good intention, with a pure heart and something I prayed about. But I also made a mistake as I approached the situation too. I said something I shouldn't have. I got a little defensive and in my act of being defensive, I got thoughtless and said something ugly. It was too late! What I said was already out there. There wasn't anything I could do to get my words back. Even now I feel a little raw and exposed. But the Holy Spirit is constantly allowing my skin to be exposed in order for me to be rid of so much self that daily rears it's ugly face. The process is painful but sometimes my skin must be scraped away. Much like burn patients that have to endure painful treatments AWAKE, we have to be put on the potter's wheel wide AWAKE too. Oh how easy it would be to sleep through the night, let God work out all of our kinks, wake up and be brand new and free of self! But that is not going to happen. Instead, the pruning process is often painful as we realize the many things in our life that can't stay. They must go!

My desire to be a Godly woman and to minister to other women is at the forefront of my mind every single day. But in order for me to be all that He truly wants me to be, I will find myself in a scraping process pretty much all the time. It's the only way for me to grow. Today my finger hurts pretty bad but with ointment and a band-aid, the burn feels a bit of relief. So many times in my own personal journey, I feel like I am just out there, exposed and wounded. But my Heavenly Father always doctors me up by the wisdom He gives me through His Word and by the comfort He sends through the Holy Spirit. For my wounds may be exposed for the world to see, but He bandages me up and holds me tight as I learn the many things I have to learn. The process is rudimentary, it can't be avoided.

And if it takes a burn from hot glue to wake me up at night and hear from my precious Lord, I'll take the burn. I will welcome the 3am hour any day.