It seemed easy enough.
Walk outside, kink the hose, pick up the sprinkler, move said sprinkler, unkink the hose, and go back inside.
All went according to plan until the “move said sprinkler” part.
Somehow while moving said sprinkler, my fourth toe on my right foot ended up in the pipe of the sprinkler just as I dropped the thing.
I felt a sickening movement and immense pain in my toes. Thinking I had probably cut the skin, I looked down only to see that toe sticking out over my pinky toe.
There is something about seeing your toes perpendicular to each other that is rather unsettling. As I cried, “Ouch, ouch, ouch” over and over again, I glanced up to see my toe middle children looking at me with terrified expressions on their faces. As I looked down again, I thought, “They can’t see my toe sticking out like that,” so I reached down and pushed it back over.
Then reality started to sink in.
At this point, I was pretty sure it was broken so I called Wilbur to come home and drive me to the doctor and asked my parents to watch the kiddos. An x-ray showed that it was just dislocated, not fractured, and a trip to my chiropractor put it back in place.
That was all a week ago. Today, the pain is minimal, the swelling is still slowly going down, and my toe is mostly straight.
But I can’t stop thinking about my dislocated toe and our relationships with God.
Why my dislocated toe reminds me of a relationship with God
Sometimes we do things that cause our relationships with God to be a little out of joint—a little dislocated. Maybe it is harboring bitterness, being discontent, losing my temper, complaining, grumbling, unforgiveness, or any other sin.
When we sin, our relationship with God isn’t whole and strong, it’s out of whack, weak, and painful.
Like when I pushed my toe back over mostly straight, we can attempt to cover it up, pretend everything is just fine, and downplay the whole ordeal. But the reality of it is, the relationship is still disjointed and painful.
We can attempt to ignore it and hope it goes away on its own. (Yes, I really did contemplate in my mind seeing if my dislocated toe would fix itself. Where do these thoughts come from?????) But sin, no matter how small, separates us from God. It doesn’t go away just because we ignore it.
If we desire a repairing our relationship with God, to set it back in its right alignment, we have to go to the One who can fix it. We have to repent and ask for forgiveness.
And the sooner the better.
I know it sounds a little crazy that I pushed my toe back over almost immediately after it happened. As I told my chiropractor what I had done, I felt foolish for having messed with it. But she said, “It’s better that you did before the swelling set in. It will go back in easier and heal faster because you pushed it back in right away.”
The same is true about repairing a relationship with God. The sooner we repent and get our relationship right with him, the better. Leaving it disjointed will only bring more suffering, pain, distance, and harm to ourselves. The sooner we ask for his forgiveness, the sooner true healing can take place, and the less likely we are to cause further pain.
We don’t have to live in the pain of a disjointed relationship with him, we just have to come and humbly extend our heart and let him realign all the pieces so that we can walk in unity with him.
