LAST MAY as I was giving a recorder lesson to my eight- and nine-year-old music students, one of them asked, "What's that on your thumb?"
I had struggled with a wart on this thumb for about a year, and the thickened skin around it caused me a great deal of discomfort. At that time, I had a busy schedule teaching music full-time at two elementary schools in Vancouver. Even though I managed to listen to the Bible Lesson on my MP3 player during my 40–minute commute to work (or while eating breakfast), I wasn't making time for focused prayer and reflection, nor, I felt, really giving God all the honor and attention I knew I wanted to.
Whilst in the throes of work, and also in my personal life, it seemed all too easy to lose the sense of harmony that's natural to us as God's reflection and to react negatively to certain things people said and did.
