Today an Appalachian Trail Hiker explained the meaning of the phrase “Christmas toes” to us…
This morning my husband ran out of coffee. And if you drink coffee, you understand that that means you must make an immediate trip to the store.
So we drove to Walmart. On the way, we picked up two Appalachian Trail hikers who were less than 30 days from completing this very long hike. One of them explained to us some of the various issues that Appalachian Trail hikers face with their feet.
One of the issues he described is “Christmas toes”. When he first said these words, I giggled inside. It sounded like a funny term but it is actually not. This term means that after months of daily hiking, the tips of the hiker’s toes can go numb. And when they do, the hiker does not usually feel anything in them until the Christmas after he finishes his hike. Around Christmas time after the hike, the feeling returns to the tips of the toes. Hence the name “Christmas toes”.
After he explained this, I sat back in the car and thought about Christmas toes and life. There are many situations in life that are like this. Sometimes life can cause us to suddenly feel things that we do not want to feel, things that are very uncomfortable. But if we are patient, that feeling is eventually replaced with normal feelings.
Often this has happened in my life. For example, after one of my surgeries, the pain was so horrible that I wished I had not survived the surgery. But I hung in here and the pain went away and now I am walking again.
It has happened to me with emotional pain, too. During my first marriage, the pain of the abuse I suffered was extremely horrific both physically and emotionally, but the emotional pain was the worst. Oftentimes the severity of the emotional pain made me wish I would die the next time he abused me physically.
But for some reason I survived both the pain my ex-husband caused and the pain that all of my surgeries caused and now I am glad to be alive. I guess these situations were both “Christmas toes” situations.
When you suffer so much you feel you cannot bear the pain any longer, think of your situation as Christmas toes and know that your discomfort will end.
Let the encouraging words in these bobbiejrae posts help you
soar like an eagle above life’s storms.
Sometimes you must make a tradeoff!
What do the words “have faith” mean to you?
Yes, you can make lemonade from life’s lemons.
Anyone ever told you that something is impossible?
