Miguel and Rebecca Aguirre Just another weblog 
If any of you have ever been out to the Southwest, you might have experienced "toritos", which are called "goathead thorns" in English (the Spanish ‘toritos’ means ‘little bulls’). They get their name from the fact that they literally have "horns". They are one of the most annoying little things you’ve ever seen…or felt, rather.
Toritos grow everywhere out here in the desert, on a seemingly innocent little plant with pretty yellow flowers. But they leave behind these sharp little thorns that are capable of crippling a person temporarily or puncturing bicycle tires (it’s nearly impossible to keep the bicycle tires inflated, so most people fill their tires with a product that replaces the air so they can avoid flats).
When we first lived here years ago, we lived outside of the city and noticed immediately quite a few jackrabbits, bold enough to come out during the day! The jackrabbits mercilessly nibbled on the grass that we carefully watered every day and we wondered why the dogs weren’t more vigilant…until one day we saw one of the dogs attempting to chase down a rabbit, only to yelp as a torito stuck him in one foot and then another. I didn’t know that dogs could actually still get around on only two legs!
Playing volleyball was an adventure as well…every time the ball hit the ground, it had to be inspected carefully or the next person to serve or receive it could get a nasty surprise!
Toritos also enter the house stuck onto people’s shoes…the toritos in the picture are the result of checking my flip-flops the other day…no telling how many had already fallen off in the house! Several days ago, Jojo was showing me how he could hop on one foot and landed on a torito! Some people, like Jojo, react to toritos with itching and redness, so we quickly washed off the puncture wound before it became any worse.
It got me to thinking about how it’s the small things that can affect us the most sometimes…the little hurts, the little irritants, the small comments or perceived slights from others. As Miguel and I are adjusting to a new field of service and a different way of doing things, it’s not really the big changes that have the potential to get us down, but the little things, like having to make small changes in the Spanish words that we use, the slightly different ways of relating to others within our mission organization, an inconvenient laundry set-up, or learning to use a new cellphone…
And just like with toritos, those things are out there and hard to avoid. The best thing is to learn how to deal with them quickly and check often to see if anything is clinging to us that might fester into big problems later. Our entire ministry can become as crippled as a two-legged dog if we don’t watch carefully and take care of ourselves!
