5 Blisters

I count 5 blisters on my hands.

I touch each one.  A blister is the fluid that collects to protect the skin underneath from damage.  With that bubble of liquid in place, the layer below stays safe and can heal from whatever assaults it.  The blister is the skin’s defense mechanism.

These particular blisters arise out of an afternoon of raking leaves and building leaf houses with my daughters.  We map out rooms to our imaginary homes and pile up leaves for walls.   In our minds, the architecture rises up, brick by brick, and materializes over our heads.  An imaginary fire roars in the fireplace.  An apple pie bakes in the leaf oven.

It isn’t until I come inside to grade papers that I realize the damage to my hands.  These blisters are perfect protection from what I didn’t even perceive was wrong.

I didn’t tell my body to do that.  I didn’t even know it was happening.  What an intricate design the body is that it protects and repairs without our permission, without our even knowing!  So while I’m off imagining a life in leaves, something makes that layer I need to live outside of imagination.  It’s protects me when I don’t perceive harm.

Blisters remind me of God’s loving protection–the kind I don’t invite or often value, placed right in my hands so I can heal.