Smashed

I smashed my finger yesterday. It happened when I was shoving wet clothes in the dryer. I was moving pretty fast and didn't notice my right hand was in the way, thus I slammed the dryer door on my finger. Immediately I howled. Dean came running downstairs to make sure I was fine (I was on the floor by then), and Scarlett ran to see if I was okay. For a moment, I thought I'd puke. It's that instantaneous reaction your body has when you experience a quick flash of white-hot pain. Scarlett placed her arm around me, and I thought for sure she was going to get it (puke). When that nauseous feeling comes over a person, you just can't be touched! In less than 5 minutes, the extent of my pain was a throbbing finger, and I was fine. I smashed my finger, and my Tyler smashed his truck. At the end of the driveway, he slammed into another truck carrying a couple and their pre-teen daughter. It happened when he was in a hurry to get to his friend Tanner's house and hang out before having to go to work. He was moving pretty fast down the driveway in his old red truck, and didn't notice the other truck until it was too late. He slammed on the brakes, which locked up, and he literally slid into the other truck. Our neighbor, Damien, came running up to the house to ask me to come to the end of the driveway. I did, and was fortunate enough to have 3 of my MOPS ladies come with me. Tyler was mad. He was blaming the brakes, of course. I've spent some time reflecting on both incidents and why they happened. We get in a hurry. It's that simple. God gives us 24 hours in a day, and plenty of time to do the things HE'S put on our daily calendar, but we cram a bunch of other stuff on it. Before you know it, you've smashed yourself just doing something normal. It was not the brakes fault that Tyler was driving too fast down the driveway, any more than it was the dryer doors fault that I left my hand in the way. It was Tyler's responsibility to pay attention to his actions, as well as my responsibility towards mine. Painful things happen when we fill up our days with things WE think are so important, instead of taking those 24 hours to freely do what our Creator has in mind for us. He certainly doesn't cause the stress to smash us up in a day's time...that's all our wreckage.
My finger feels much better today, although I still can't decide if the nail will eventually fall off or not. The consequences are some kind of sore. Tyler, however, may have way more serious consequences, depending on how we go about dealing with the wreck. In either case, we would fair much better if we simply slowed down.