A Broken Body

Have you ever had a cold?  I'm guessing most of you say yes.  I don't know about you all, but when I have a cold my whole body is affected by it.  Not only do I have a runny nose and a headache, but my whole body just feels drowsy and even my stomach doesn't feel well.  What a terrible feeling.  This is probably why the "common cold" is one of the most dreaded things to catch...and there is no over the counter cure for it.  Now, let's transition that to looking at a letter Paul writes to the church in Corinthia.  He says  in 1 Corinthians 12:25-27, "So there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a part of it."

Lately, my heart is truly hurting for our broken body.  Paul straight up says,  "YOU are the body."  We often like to hear that but I don't think we are taking it seriously.  How often to we let petty things scar the body?  We look to our own selfishness as to why "people aren't doing this for me," or "i can't believe they did that to me" or "I can't believe so and so did this, I never would...." The common words in these complaints are "me" and "I."  What are we doing?  It makes me so sad to think that the body is hurting because of us being blinded by our selfishness.  I know that I am saying "us" and some of you are thinking, "I never do that."  If that is how you feel, then that is great. I just think that I feel like this is something I have seen in my own life and the people around me.  I have seen the bad effects it has on a church and how it stops the work of God being done.  What if we as a church, as one body began to rejoice with one anther and suffer in one another's pain because we love our brothers and sisters so much that we feel for them?  What if we looked at the Jesus in our brothers and sisters rather than focusing so hard on their inperfections?  I believe that if we did, we would have a beautifully unified body.

Now the only way to truly get over the common cold is by allowing time for it get better, and giving yourself some tender, love and care.  I believe for our body to be healed of the hurts we have caused one another it requires the same.  It may take some time for the scars of gossiping, lying or judging to be healed.  It will require giving us truly loving and caring for one another in a Christ love and believing He can restore any hurt, any friendship.  It takes effort.  It takes forgiving one another.  

I know that this may have seemed a bit like a "soapbox" and I am not one who tends to pour out frustrations through blogs or any other method.  I just want us to take a good look at our body of Christ and see where we need to heal some friendships or forgive in order for the body to operate as one body, united in Christ.

Lunges

I have recently been with the flock of people making the commitment to spend more time in the gym and less time eating junk food and taking too many naps. The good news is that I am feeling consistent with it and have great friends that are doing the same. I decided to pay the money to get a pass to take aerobics classes at the Rec. center. I went to my first one last Wednesday. Let me try to "paint a picture" for you. I walk into the room with mirrors surrounding me, reminding me of just how not in shape I am. The instructors tell us all to get the equipment and get ready for a "killer workout," I had no idea how literal the word "killer" would be in the next hour. Here I am with a huge smile on my face eager to begin. A friendly girl helps me out by telling me how much weight to get. So, the class begins with music that has that really loud, constant, annoying beat. The type of music where you really hate it before because it annoying but even worse after because you know from this moment on you will never be able to listen to that song without remembering the movements and weight you had to lift at each beat. The instructor says, "Alright girls, time to get in shape and burn some calories!" I now lift up my big 5lb weights for each arm as she tells us to do so. "Time to do lunges!" I think to myself, "Lunges? I hate these things!" Little did I know that my hate for them was just beginning. We are in our first 15 minutes of the class and my knees are already shaking in pain as if they are telling me, "Why are you doing this to me?!" Then the instructor who seemed so nice and encouraging in the beginning yells, "You are just through the warm up, let's get serious!" "Oh Lord, is this lady crazy? Has she seen how not fit I am? She thinks I can do as many lunges as her?" I thought to myself. Well, the hour continues on as we move from legs to arms to abs and all the areas of the body that we want to look all nice and fit. Lunges were surely my least favorite thing. I woke up the next day in so much pain that I had a hard time moving, let alone walking up and down the stairs to get to class!
I looked up the word for lunge earlier today and it means, "A sudden forward movement or plunge." Hmm. Let us ponder on that. Now, inside the rec. center we tend to "lunge" into a tough workout plan and get so overwhelmed that we never go back. Outside of the rec. center I want us to think about how we tend to "lunge" and get burnt out in our relationship with the Lord. Now, could it be that the reason we get so "overwhelmed" with our quiet times, service, fellowship that we feel sore or worn out. What if we took our lunge into a more consistent thing? You see, I went to that same workout class this week, and worked out the days before so that I wouldn't be that sore and worn out again, and it actually worked! Sometimes I think about how I tend to go on a retreat or hear some great sermon and I decide, "Today is the day I'm going to make things change. I'm going to be a better friend, better girlfriend, better servant, better this and better that!" While it is not bad to make commitments and make changes in our life for the better I think it is important to remember how great being steady in our lives is. If we are consistently in the Word, consistently spending time with Jesus and praying to Him, we aren't going to encounter as many sore times. For now I am going to go lunge myself into some homework which I haven't been so consistent on because blogging is so much more fun!

Super Bowl Fuss

So, I failed! I have not kept up with my blog at all. Honestly, I saw Tim beginning his blog today and remembered I had one. I certainly didn't know I had "followers." I have decided to write again. At least in some way, about something. I am not sure if they thoughts will make sense, but it is ok.

I decided to talk about the Superbowl game last night. Now I enjoy watching sports with friends, but I will be honest that I was more excited to try out my new meatball recipe in my new crockpot than to see who won the game. However, as we all sat down to watch the big game and listened in awe to Jennifer Hudson do a beauitiful job I began to get so excited. The people around me were all hiped up, the commercials, the fireworks everything around me made it impossible to not be excited about the game.

I decided to pull for the Cardinals. For no other reason than I love the state of Arizona and I can't stand the Steelers. As we watched the game we all got fired up about the touchdowns but at times, even more fired up about the "bad calls" being made by the officials. I honestly know very little about "face mask" or "holding" or what all the penalties mean...but I do know that when all the people around me got upset so did I. Looking back, it is kind of funny how I fussed at the television screen like all those around me. After the game I was convinced that the only reason the Steelers won was because the bad officials "handed" it to them. Tim later on told me, "Well, all those calls weren't actually bad. We just all got upset because they were called against the team we wanted to win." Wow, did I feel silly! I had no clue what I was making a fuss about.

Doesn't life often seem like that? I don't know about you but a lot of times if I am around a group of people that are making a big fuss, I decide I will join that wagon. What a shame! What if I used my fuss for good things. Like making a big fuss about social injustices or about the sin that entangles us today! What if I got up and fussed at the t.v. for all the deceptions it gives us about the world today. What if I made a big fuss because I saw a random person on the street get mistreated. Well folks, I guess that is what I need to start doing!

P.S. I understand that some of you sport fanatics out there may be thinking I'm crazy. Maybe there were a lot of bad calls made, all I know that if there were, I'm not really sure what they were.