The Thorn (In Your Side)

There is beauty in everything, but often times there is something found that is not so beautiful; that can be painful or hurtful or down right nasty.  They say everything happens for a reason and everything has a purpose.

For instance, my favourite flower is the rose.  What an awesome flower.  Why those ugly thorns; they can even make you bleed?  What’s the purpose of the “thorn in the side” of the rose?  Because I believe that everything created has purpose; that YHWH doesn’t whimsically create without purpose, then I believe a thorn has its purpose.  I won’t get side-tracked into analyzing what I think that purpose might be (that would be a whole blog unto its own).

I will take the example of the thorn on the rose having a purpose and relate it to the thorn in your side – be it a thorn that you have embraced from the hand or word of another, or even a physical thorn, much like the one Paul spoke about in the New Testament of the Bible.

Do you have a person in your life who is or you feel is a “thorn in your side?”  I do.  I need to go within me, however, to see why I’ve been “blessed” to have this person in my life – who “so pricks” me every time I see them…doesn’t quite draw blood, but it sure gets the “blood to boiling!”  Come on, ya gotta have some humour here folks!  Anyway, what follows is truthfully (though I say fictitiously) how I feel, what I perceive of this person…and how I think “they should get fixed.”  Is it them, or is it me, who needs fixing?

A fictitious fantasy about a frivolous, fractious and flirtatiously dangerous subject…thorns in the side – the arrogant soul who doesn’t know that s/he has abilities, not earned nor deserved, and yet they walk around like god(s) or goddess(es)…. Thank upon these words, this scenario.  Can you relate in anyway to the painted picture posted posthumously?  The names have been left out to protect the portentously perilously innocent from the dragon.

Do you ever have a thorn in your side that just won’t go away; a thorn that keeps “pricking” at you and yet doesn’t seem to let you know what it is you are supposed to know, how you can fix it or, more importantly, make it go away?  I am thinking about people who can be the “thorns in my side.”  Surely someone else out there can relate; perhaps even, if you’ve met me, I cause the same physical reaction in you; I am your thorn in the side?

So, how do you handle a thorn in your side in the office, or the next door neighbour or even your own family environment, when what you’d really like to do is knock it off its arrogant pedestal?  Oops…am I looking in a mirror when I see that arrogance?  Is that how I come across?  Are these people in our lives so we can, if we choose (to accept the assignment), see ourselves as others see us?  I’m not about flagrantly self-flagellating and beating myself up.  I am simply saying that there is a quality in this person that makes me…well makes my blood boil, and they just won’t go away.  Just when things are okay…pop, they are there and in my face.

I think that thorn will remain (unless I run away and hide) until I learn the lessons I need to learn.  From life’s experiences in other areas, this much I’ve come to know as being a truth.  A situation (or a thorn) will keep repeating itself until we learn, until we get it right…so that we can move on to the next lesson in living. So, my dear thorn, instead of throwing thorny barbs back at you, hopefully I will remain open to see the message you bring for me to learn…so I can (be rid of you, or at least the perceived aggravation you seem to bring to my life) move on.