wanna put my tender finger in a blender

On Tuesday I was making strawberry banana smoothies for the kids when somehow I sliced open the middle finger on my right hand. It was a new blender, so the blade was really sharp and I didn't realize what had happened until it was too late. It immediately soaked through a paper towel and two bandaids. The next morning when I removed the bandage it started gushing again. It wasn't a very big cut, but it could have probably used a stitch. Instead I had Peppy run out and buy some skin glue, which has worked well over the past few days.

No, this isn't a post where I make a big deal out of this tiny cut. 

The past few days have made me hyper aware of all the things that are more difficult when you are trying to keep your middle finger from ripping back open. Like, typing and washing my hair and rinsing dishes. Basically I tried to use my left hand as much as possible because I was more concerned with keeping bacteria out of my open fingertip than anything else. Plus, I kept mentally imagining trying to rinse shampoo out of my hair and having the cut get caught on some hair and rip back open. (Open skin flaps kind of gross me out. And holes. Clusters of holes send a vile shiver down my spine. Actually it is not really the flap itself that grosses me out, but the idea of it catching and snagging back open on something.) It is nice to imagine again, even if it is often morbid or gross. 

I started to see parallels between my maimed digit and the importance of each member of the body of Christ. Most of us probably don't give much thought to our body parts until one is no longer working how it should be. Even tiny little fingertips are important, and your entire body functions as one whole organism working for a common goal. Obviously we can still live without many of our body parts, but it is so much easier when everything is functioning together as it should. When one body part isn't working correctly, we rely on the others to pick up its slack. In the body of Christ, we depend on our brothers and sisters when we physically/mentally/emotionally cannot move forward. We can also get so much more accomplished when we all work together. 

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free —and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 

Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it."  -1 Corinthians 12:12-26

By the way, the smoothies were delicious. Next time I might hide in some spinach and see if either of them notices. 

Picture not relevant to this post at all, but fruits and vegetables, am I right? If you've made it this far I will suggest that you look into Jekyll Island and the truth behind William Rockefeller and the federal reserve. I went down that wormhole yesterday. I am always excited to learn conspiracies that I have never heard of before.