Thick Skinned or A Tenderfoot?

Examining my city-slicker hands and feet, I notice the blisters I earned a few weeks ago weed-eating at the farm have turned into callouses, just in time for me to jump back into the work now. It got me thinking about how the first butterfly sighting of spring always ushered in the barefoot season, so by the time we hit mid to late summer, our feet were so tough even sharp rocks didn’t slow us kids down.  I’ve noticed people don’t go barefoot as much as we used to and it’s a crying shame. One might say we’ve gone soft and can’t survive shoelessness. My recent blisters were the result of wearing rubber boots that were a size too big.  My body simply reacted to pressure and friction.
     I love object lessons and metaphors, and my blisters and callouses provide me the opportunity.  Sometimes we blister, reacting to ill-fitting boots…or things in life not meant for us…New things can cause pressure and friction. We must intentionally address the point of friction.
    Unwelcome blisters come when we are ill-prepared, but some people like callouses. Where callouses have formed, we become less sensitive, aiding musicians, athletes, and artisans who labor with their hands. Mom gets callouses from making baskets and I get them from working leather. Fresh in my memory like it was yesterday are the large-knuckled hands of my great aunts, the Balli Sisters, evidence of years milking cows, chopping firewood, hoeing a garden, raking hay,  mending fences, and making Swiss cheese. As a kid, I thought those strong calloused hands could conquer the world.
      I have a friend who has the uncanny ability to grasp a hot log and rearrange it in the fire pit, or grab a pan straight from the oven with his bare hands. Hands that have become so tough he can’t feel much anymore.  Back in the day, an old woman advised us 20-year-old girls to look at a man’s hands to determine if they were capable of taking care of us. The more work-worn they were, the better. A few blisters showed they were trying, a few callouses meant they were succeeding.  Mom used to say so-and- so has thick skin but she wasn’t talking about their physical selves, she meant they were tough and nothing bothered them. Thick skin is helpful in a culture where everyone is offended about something.  I heard once when an unwelcome comment rains down you, simply “be a like a duck and let it roll off your back.”  Sometimes I’ve had to say “Be a duck….Be a duck.”  It’s best to just say it in your head, but if the words slip out audibly with a determined fierceness, it just might ward off your offender.
     Not being sensitive might be the best thing about callouses, but it’s also the worst thing about them!  If we loose our sense of touch and feeling, our natural instinct to react to danger goes out the window. Several scriptures warn us about this:  “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes…”  (Matthew 13:15) “But because of your callous stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself…” (Romans 2:5) and “They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more.” (Ephesians 4:19) A heart that continually refuses to repent and surrender to Jesus becomes hardened—calloused. Much like a toughened calloused hand grabbing a burning log on fire, a hard heart doesn’t feel the danger it’s in and “wants more and more”. If callouses have already started forming, I know a Perfect healing balm and His name is Jesus.
     So let’s put on those metaphorical muck boots…Things might get messy and we might get blisters, but the reward will be great if we’re willing to put in the “work”.         

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