I was doing the dishes, Amy had just left to go to a shower with her friends and family for our soon to come little girl. Anytime that someone is in the kitchen, Owen is in there as well... Either, grazing for food, playing with the tupperware, opening a closing cabinets and drawers, or playing with the dishwasher. Well, since daddy was "playing in the dishwasher," Owen also wanted to play in the dishwasher. Never before has this been a dangerous place to play. We place the knives in the back, out of his reach, and he normally keeps to the spoons and the plastics. I busily cleaning the pots and the pans when I hear a crash! Owen had managed to pull out a glass bowl and throw it on the ground. Before I could tell him "No" or get to him fast enough he had reached down and picked up a broken piece of the now shattered bowl. Afraid that he might want the piece and hold on to it tighter I carefully had him release the piece of glass with hopes that he had not cut himself. Unfortunately, blood started to spill out of his little hand. Not knowing exactly where the blood was coming from, I rinsed Owen's hand under the facet to find that his thumb had a rather large cut that was bleeding profusely. In the next couple of seconds Owen will go from being calm and curious about the bright red fluid to angrily crying and throwing himself around.
Band-Aids... Where are the band aids? I cannot remember the last time I needed one. Owen hasn't needed one yet. Last week he fell and scratched his knee, but didn't seem to need a band aid or any consoling for that matter. I am scrambling, looking for the band aids with no success. Meanwhile, blood is now covering his shirt, his head and face and is dripping all over his hand. I am trying to control the bleeding with a tissue, but Owen was fighting me furiously and did not want his hand touched. This is best illustrated by the blood that was covering the back of his shirt! Trying to hold his hand as far from me as possible. With the peircing cry, blood all over, and a very sad and angry little boy I gave up looking for the band aids and settled for tissue and blue painters tape.
First try: while talking calmly to Owen and holding his thumb, I very gingerly tried to cover the cut with tissue and wrap the tape around the thumb. Owen then yanked his hand and the tape got tangled and stuck to itself...
Second try: With a little more experience now, I was able to wrap the blue tape around the tissue, only for Owen to fling his hand and have the bloodied makeshift band-aid fly across the room.
Third try, no success
Fourth try... Fifth Try AHHHHHHhhhhh!
Frustrated and no longer calm, I called up Jason. "Dude, do you have any band-aids?" "Can you swing by with some, Owen cut his thumb and I can't find ours..." and I hung up on him.
Sixth try: Now I am frustrated and getting angry! Why isn't this working...? Owen is screaming and convulsing and doing whatever a one year old can do to keep his father from hurting him more! I was pushing and pulling and holding Owen's hand down with a lot of might! Meanwhile the sight of all the blood all over the place isn't helping. Owen didn't understand I was trying to help. I was trying to fix it. But the harder I tried, the harder he became!
It was in these moments of a small hurting thumb that I began to understand what God had to go through in order to send his son to hurt, bleed, and die. What God must have been feeling in those moments? What Jesus was feeling in those moments? I wanted nothing more but to save my son from a cut on his little thumb. God witnessed his son, being beaten, stabbed, and cut all over his body. I just wanted it to stop, Owen just wanted it to stop. Jesus, just wanted it to stop, while at the same time knew that he couldn't let it stop. The amount of love God and Jesus had to do what they did for us, is something we will never be able to fathom.
Jason stopped by with some band aids as I was cleaning up the blood from Owen's face and head. Owen's bloodied shirt and swollen red eyes from crying probably made it look as if I was beating my child. Not wanting to try the escapade all over again, I waited and saved the re-dressing of the thumb for mom and grandma. So for the next couple of hours Owen kept his thumb neatly tucked away inside of his fingers protecting it and keeping it safe.
