Growing up can be painful because life has thorns, splinters, briers, and nettles that find their way into us. We had a black locust tree that had thorns. Momma said they were poison. They were very uncomfortable when they penetrated our skin. The holes would be sore and usually get infected. Treatment consisted of Epson Salt, turpentine, and other home remedies.
In Sunday school were studied about Jesus having a crown of thorns shoved onto his head. The Hopper boys decided to make one from the black locust and being the inquisitive boys we were placed it on our heads. It hurt! We couldn’t imagine the pain that Jesus endured from the thorns much less the crucifixion.
Having had thorns stuck into me, it made the Apostle Paul’s thorn in the flesh more understandable. He must have had some terrible pin to call it a thorn in the flesh.
We have always handled wood whether it be firewood, lumber, used boards, and pulpwood. When you work with wood there will be splinters. You get them in your fingers, in your arms, and other various body parts and you ask, “How did I get a splinter there.”
Left alone splinters fester and make you sore. One on the worst I had was under a fingernail. It went so deep that I could not pull it out. Momma was our general practitioner, and she did most of the doctoring. The deeper the splinter, the deeper momma dug. She was very effective in surgical removal of most splinters.
The one under my fingernail was no problem for momma. She took some fingernail clippers and cut the nail until she recovered the splinter. It was a relief, but fingernails cut down into the quick hurt too.
A large splinter threaded my skin one day and rather than trying to pull it out the way it went in, momma just pulled it all the way through. That was sore too.
Cancer is a family trait. One time my brother David had knots on his head. Naturally he worried and eventually visited a specialist to see if the knots were cancer. The doctor was puzzled. As he biopsied the contents of the knots, he realized it was wooden splinters. David had a knot head. He received the splinters where he had carried sheets of plywood on his head while building houses. We laughed and were relieved. Daddy always called us knot heads.
Briers protect things that are edible and pretty. If you grow roses, you grow briers. My wife Lisa saw these beautiful white roses at an old house place. She wanted some. Walking through the rose vines I had my share tiny places oozing droplets of blood. The vines seem to run forever before I found the main roots. I dug some, planted them in the front yard and made a trellis for them. Lisa has the most beautiful brier vines. Every time I prune them, I get more tiny holes oozing blood droplets.
Last week while mowing the lawn near the trellis, long green briers reached out to grab me. I dodged them but a wild dewberry brier growing from a fig tree grabbed my left arm. My arm had a trail of tiny holes and briers.
Wild dewberries and blackberries are a staple fruit in Alabama. Every rural woman had to have them for making jellies. When I eat homemade blackberry jelly, it reminds me of the sweat, blood, and red bugs bites I got while harvesting them. I think that maybe the red bug bites are the worst.
Needles from cactus and bull nettle will prick you too. One week my baby son Aaron spent the week with his granddaddy Moxley. He had the time of his life with his Pawpaw except he came home with a red place in the bend of his right arm.
I asked him what happened, and he said he walk by a sticker bush. I thought is must have been a bull nettle. His redness worsened and I could not see any visible marks.
Finally, I sat him on the bathroom sink where the sun shined bright. I took his tiny arm as he held it out straight. He said it was not hurting. I took my thumb and index finger and pinched his skin. I noticed there was something in the bend of his arm. I asked him did he trust me, and he said he did. He did not like needles.
I sterilized a sewing needle and penetrated his skin at the end of the bulge. When I opened it up, a needle longer than an inch slowly slid exited his arm. I pinched the skin again and the second bulged like the first.
Squeezing the bulge, I could see another object trying to exit the place. I got a second and then a third. I knew Aaron was a tough little boy and the three nettle needles roved it. He was tickled and I was glad that Doctor Momma taught me how to remove thorns, splinters, biers, and needles. All these evil intrusions if not removed will fester and cause pain.
And
lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the
revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan
to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. II Corinthians 12:7 KJV
And why beholdest thou the mote
that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own
eye? Or
how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye;
and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy
brother's eye. Matthew 7: 3-5 KJV
And there shall be no more a pricking brier
unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about
them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD. Ezekiel
28:24 KJV
Among the bushes they brayed; under the
nettle they were gathered together. Job 30:7 KJV
