Have you ever been in physical pain? I mean the kind of pain you experience with a serious car accident, broken bone, or surgery?
The pain can be so severe that it strikes at your deepest gut level. Your nerves scream. You’re in agony, and you can’t get any relief. Heavy pain meds might take the edge off, but only for a while. Ice acts like a numbing anesthetic it, but eventually that wears off too. Your body screams “Nooooooo! Make it go away!” Or the pain can be so severe you actually entertain the thought of death being an inviting option.
Before I went on hiatus for my oral surgery, we were discussing whether or not we—as humans—were more body or more spirit. I’d like to return to that discussion for the next several weeks.
What do you think?
When you’re in physical pain, would you say you’re thinking of yourself as more body, or more spirit? I know I’ve often wished that I were more spirit than body at that point, but there’s just no escaping the body my spirit’s housed in. Often even my spirit cries out too, since it doesn’t seem to like it when the body’s suffering either. The physical disability seems to wrap its tentacles around every part of you. Body and spirit intertwine. And you engage in mental combat to make the spirit rise and conquer.
At those times, we usually allow the body to move into center stage, and give it all the attention it demands, deserves, if you want to heal properly and press on in life. Often the spirit takes a backseat, or is temporarily forgotten. Even though you’re really trying to focus on the spirit—sometimes for distraction—the body can be pretty demanding.
Example—
Take a good look at the picture at the top of the post. The collarbone that’s broken, splintered into multiple pieces and displaced. It’s a doozy. And having suffered a simple greenstick fracture (crack) in my collarbone at the age of 4, I can tell you this person is suffering. My arm felt as though it was falling off. I can only barely imagine what this person’s arm felt like.
Realignment would require surgery and internal fixation. It may even be a compound fracture, where it’s broken through the skin. Bleeding. With muscle, fat, and nerve tissue exposed.
There is no question in my mind that the sufferer of this injury is overwhelmed with the limitations and demands of his or her body. And it’s getting their attention.
Can you blame them?
NEXT WEEK: I’ll give you what I think are good examples of spirit and body taking on equal importance. And it’s demonstrated with and in our Lord Jesus.
Have a great weekend nurturing both body and spirit!
Blessings,
Andrea
May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).
Photo by Harlie Raethel