The Blister

It was hot summer and Little John’s mother had been cutting cabbage anticipating she would make kraut with it later. She was outside working in the hot sun most of the afternoon and hadn’t realized a split in the upper back of her dress was going to result in a bad sunburn.

The little family lived in a two room shanty with no screens on the doors. When it was hot, they left the doors wide open in order to get any breeze that might be available. Night time came and little John and his Mother settled down for the night. Little John’s dad had gone to Oklahoma to buy some prairie hay to sell to the farmers in the area. Being a little frightened because his Daddy wasn’t there, Little John crawled in bed with his mother for the night.

Little John’s family had three dogs. Occasionally, they would have worms, which caused, what people called “running fits”. It so happened, this was one of those nights when one of the dogs had a running fit. In through the house, he came; under the bed he went, jumping around, knocking against the mattress and making a terrible noise. The commotion woke Little John from a sound sleep and he was scared to death! He flung himself over on his mother, who was laying on her stomach. When he did, he just centered the huge water blister that had formed on her back, busting it and bringing his mom to her feet. It was so painful, his mother began to cry. Poor Little John didn’t know what to do; His daddy was gone, something terrible was going on under the bed and now his mother was crying. He certainly hadn’t intended to hurt his Mother and he really felt badly doing so.

How many times do we unintentionally hurt someone? Have you ever been talking to a friend about another friend and realize the person you were talking about overheard you? How many times do we hurt someone else and we never realize it? Some of us just have big mouths and we don’t control them very well. It would be good if we all would take inventory of the things we have said or done lately that might have hurt another. I’m sure Little John was very, very sorry that he had hurt his Mother. I imagine he told her he was sorry. If you know you have hurt someone, what do you do?

 What would God have us do?

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12 NLT