Have you ever experienced pain that draws all of your faculties to the source of the pain?  We are in the football playoffs and we will see someone get hit on the field that will cause the game to stop as they take care of the player who is in serious pain.  But I am not talking about that kind of pain.  Have you had someone who was in an automobile accident and had cuts and lacerations over their body, or more serious injuries?  They are in serious pain, but I am not talking about that kind of pain.

I am talking about the kind of pain that is in the remotest part of your body that doctors say is useless.  It is a part of the body that could be done away with and you would never know it was missing.  It’s a part of the body that hardly anyone sees throughout their lifetime, but is visible if you take the time to look at it.  This last statement rules out any parts of the body that is internal.

So what part of the body am I talking about?  Let me first tell you what happened and then you will know.  I was carrying out the garbage, and rolling out the garbage can a few days ago to the street so that the garbage truck could dump it in the waste management fill.  I got it to the street, but it was giving me a hard time of being in the right place with the front of the can facing the street.  I lifted up the back of the can and tried to move it to the right just a little and then it happened.  The garbage can hit the top of my boot and landed on my left little toe.

I instantly felt the pain going through my whole body.  Even my alligator belly boots couldn’t protect the weight of the can as it crashed down on my toe.  I couldn’t walk.  I couldn’t place any weight on my foot.  But it was just a little toe.  And a broken one at that.  A toe that doesn’t seem to have any purpose in life on my foot, but when it was sat upon, it cried out and all the other members of my body reacted accordingly.

Most of us have had the misfortune of walking around in the dark and crash our foot into a seemingly invisible obstacle such as a door jamb or an immovable table leg and cry out in pain.  This experience reminds me of the person who lived in the mountains and was responsible for cleaning the lake of debris so that the townspeople in the valley could have clear drinking water.  When the budget in the town needed to be cut because of a lack of funds, it was decided that the person cleaning the lake didn’t need to be kept and so he was let go of his responsibilities (they saw him as a little toe).  No one ever saw what he was doing.  His job became disposable.

A few weeks into the budget cuts, the water began to smell and turn brown.  People complained about the water and realized that the person who seemed invisible was actually the one responsible for the clean water.  We never know that our toe is there until something happens to it and causes pain.

On this journey, will come in contact with people in our community that seem like little toes and are of no use to our society until they are no longer here.  Today is a great opportunity to focus on the little people in our society who need a word of encouragement especially if they are hurting.