Yesterday I was wrapping up our seminary lesson with my testimony of obedience, ending what I felt was a good discussion and on a nice spiritual note.  The kids seemed to be watching me with an unusual level of interest, so I decided to close with a prayer and chalk the lesson up to a success.  The second the prayer was over, however, one of my freshman girls piped up (rather loudly), “I think your foot’s bleeding.” Naturally, the whole class stopped to look at my foot.  Wouldn’t you know it, I’d worn sandals that day.

I looked down and saw that the last two toes on my right foot were soaked in a small but deep pool of bright red blood.  Like, they were really bloody.  Like, I wondered how two toes could be so bloody.  I’d venture to call it a bloodbath.  Think Braveheart, and apply it to my two toes.  That’s how bloody they were, and exaggerate I do not.  (Never have.)

Luckily, my sandal sole had kept the blood from dripping onto the church’s carpet (thank you, Payless!), so I was able to drag my injured foot home without incident.  I cleaned up the (grotesque amount of) blood and found that my pinkie toe had a deep, inexplicable cut in it whose blood had spilled over to the neighboring digits.  I bandaged the wound, offered a prayer of gratitude for strength to endure the affliction, and sat back to wonder:

1.  How long had the kids been staring at this gruesome sight while I waxed poetic before them?  and

2.  When they seemed so engaged by my Bleeding Heart rhetoric, were they really just fascinated by my bleeding foot? and

3.  Could this episode have lessened my credibility, just a bit, as their teacher?

I really need summer to come.