Blessing in Disguise

Today I had an interesting experience.  I was off to the beach with the kiddos, and was carrying baby J and the huge beach bag full of diapers, towels, sand toys, snacks, etc.  I was walking in that awkward area where the dirt is becoming sand, and it was a downhill slope with plants on either side of me, and my foot slipped.  At this point it was either fall face first and crash poor J's face into the sand as well or sit on the plants to the left of me.  I chose the latter.  What I didn't know was that the plants had thorns!  Miniscule, almost invisible thorns, and luckily I just ended up with a couple in my fingers and I was able to remove them fairly easily, although they hurt something fierce while they were in there!

As we were leaving the beach and loading into the car, N started crying randomly.  When I asked her what was wrong she said, "I got an ouchy at the beach."  I tried to ask her where, but she was crying so much I couldn't understand what she was saying.  She was pointing toward the legs/feet so I did a quick check and didn't see any blood or anything, so I just buckled her in and drove home.  It was nap time so I put the kiddos down and took a nap myself.

When N woke up, I took her out of the pack n play and put her down on the floor to walk herself (she is almost 3 after all) and she immediately started crying and asking to be carried.  This is weird.  She is all about being independent and doing everything "by my own self".  She needed a diaper change so I put her up on the changing table and she started talking about her ouchy from the beach again.  I was thoroughly frustrated, but I tried to stay calm and ask her where the ouchy was.  We finally used the point-and-ask method to determine that the pain was in her right foot.  I looked and could not see anything wrong.  Frustrating. 

Then I remembered the thorns I had gotten at the beach.  I remembered that N had walked barefoot back to the car because she had refused to put her shoes back on.  So I examined her foot VERY closely, and sure enough, in the middle of the bottom of her foot there was a thorn sticking out.  I was able to use my long nails and get a hold of it and pull it out.  It was amazing, the crying instantly stopped and N was happy. 

Thinking about it, I really don't think I would have thought to look for a thorn if I hadn't experienced it myself earlier.  I was thinking about how the Lord prepares us for certain experiences.  He sometimes gives us certain trials I think JUST so that we will be prepared to help someone else with a trial in the future.  I sure am grateful that I fell into those thorns earlier or I would probably still have a screaming daughter!  It was a blessing in disguise.