My left arm hurts; I think I slept on it wrong.
(My feet say they are fine, thank you. The arm doesn’t worry them; they just carry on.)
There is a twinge in my arm when I pick stuff up.
(My knees don’t have problems with my arm: they pay no attention to it.)
My arm can’t raise over my head without hurting.
(My hand is getting impatient with my arm as it tries to reach for things.)
I’m pretty sure it’s just a muscle problem. No big deal.
(My mind doesn’t think about my arm unless it needs the arm to do something. Then that is all it thinks about.)
My arm doesn’t hurt if I don’t move it. But that’s not the purpose of an arm, is it?
(And the rest of me IS concerned. None of my body works right if part of it doesn’t. My feet carry me to get pain medication, my knees bend gently to help my arm reach down, my hand reaches for the grabber tool, and my mind works out ways to speed healing. We are all in this together. Always.)
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The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance. You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. I Corinthians 12:25-27 MSG