Wounded

When my boys were little we had a black cocker spaniel named Buster. Nothing made our little dog happier than when the boys would play outside in the back yard.



One day I heard the continued yelp of a dog in pain. I hurried outside. Buster had somehow managed to get one of his back legs stuck between two slats in the tandem swing on the boy's swing set.



By the time I reached him, he'd already struggled so much that he'd torn the skin open. I picked him up to free the back leg, and Buster did something he'd never done before. He bit me. He bit so hard that his sharp teeth pierced completely through one of my fingernails.



On any other occasion I would have punished Buster, but I didn't this time. I realized that the bite came from his pain, not from his desire to hurt me.



The life lesson I learned that day is that when people lash out, it's not necessarily for the purpose of hurting you. They may be wounded beyond what you can even imagine.