Thursday, December 10, 2009

Immediate Reaction to Hurt

Over Thanksgiving we were visiting family in Nashville, and we all went over to see the lights at the Opryland Hotel (amazing, by the way). I went in to use the restroom and the door to the stall swung shut pretty hard and--BAM--smashed the ever-lovin' heck out of one of my fingers. Immediately I put my hand up to try and minimize the throbbing.

So I'm standing there in a bathroom stall in the Opryland Hotel, hand raised, thinking to myself, "What is typically my immediate reaction to pain?" And I was thinking of emotional pain, like when I'm hurt, betrayed, or wronged, or even spiritual pain, like when I don't get what the Lord is up to, or when I'm disappointed that He moved things in a different direction than I had hoped.

Is it to immediately lift my hands?

Do I sulk, pout, vent to a friend, try to drum up sympathy, or do I lift my hands up to the one who formed my heart and has the power (and the desire) to bind it up and heal it?

It's been a week or two, and my finger is still a bit tender, but the pain isn't so great anymore that I need to walk around with my hand up. Even THIS speaks to me. We can rejoice in suffering because we know it produces in us a reliance on God of which we're just not as mindful when we're not hurting.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10
There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

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