pain"Ouch! Pinch me again! Please will you slap my face one more time? Oh, I just LOVE the heat of that stove on my hand; burn me..."
Does this sound like anything any of us would say on a daily basis? No, I don't think so, but in all actuality, the fact that we can feel pain, is a GIFT, the gift that no one wants, except for, maybe, lepers!
I just heard a story the other day concerning a little girl who had to be watched very closely, but she told her mommy that she wanted to go into her room to color. Mommy let her, as the room was just off of the kitchen, where Mommy was doing some daily chores. At first all was well, as Mommy heard her daughter laughing and talking to her dolls which she frequently did, being an only child. After a few minutes, realizing that all was quiet in the bedroom, Mommy went into the room to discover that her daughter had drawn pictures from the coloring book, off onto the pristine whiteness of her bedspread, in a red substance. However, on closer inspection, and to Mommy's horror, she saw that the color was not coming from her daughter's crayon box, but from the blood gushing from her fingertips....
SHE HAD CUT OFF THE TIPS OF HER RIGHT HAND WITH SCISSORS AND WAS COLORING WITH HER OWN BLOOD! And she had not felt a thing.
Another account says that a child ran in to ask her mother to wash the mud from her feet, while in reality, her feet were covered with stinging red ants!.
Shoes are often removed, leaving behind toes that have dislodged themselves from a foot during the removal of the shoe.
Leprosy, or Hansen's disease is a disease of the nervous system that happens gradually. The dictionary says that "the onset is intermittent and gradual; symptoms may not appear until years after exposure. It is seldom fatal, but its involvement of the peripheral nerves destroys sensation and makes the patient prone to inadvertent injury". Therefore, the patient is not dying from the actual disease itself, but because he loses FEELING and therefore hurts him or herself without realizing it, and then infection sets in, which is the actual killer.
I have been thinking about this since I heard the thought being given a while back, and have been linking it to our spiritual lives.
Leprosy can be seen as a form of sin. When we first come to Christ we are very sensitive to the needs around us, and to the fact that we wish to please Jesus more than anything else. Even the slightest off-color joke causes our faces to redden and we hurry off to the restroom to ask the Lord to forgive us for entertaining such worldly thoughts. We want to spend as much time in the presence of the Lord as possible, but it takes so much work even though the rewards, peace and joy, are so great. But plowing through the Bible and going into the room to pray, slowly become much less appealing than watching the latest movie or doing something that appeals to our senses. Somehow it no longer seems so important to go and visit the latest patient in hospital, even though it gave you so much fulfilment before, and comforted them.
Slowly but surely, we become desensitized....and no longer feel the urge to pray. Inadvertently, we become numb to the needs of others, and no longer give them any thought. We no longer feel pain, even to ourselves; spiritual leprosy has set in.
This may take years for the effects to be seen. And it may not be spotted by ourselves, but by someone who has not seen us in a long time. Because they care, they point out what we have suspected others were alluding to in double entendres, or hidden agendas. This friend points out the haggard look, the lines around the eyes, and sees the blood figuratively gushing from the wounds that are open for all the world to see. Then it is too late to put Humpty Dumpty back together again; he has been broken, for good. We are in a mess, spiritually, because the wages of sin is death, and sin is sometimes a gradual process. Satan is subtle and the heart is decietful above all things, and we do not always know what is happening until it is too late. Only a miracle can mend the severed nerves, and a lifetime of consequences is there to bear.
This is why I thank God for the gift He has given me, that no one else seems to want. I thank him for the pain that I feel when I have grieved His spirit. I thank him when my heart breaks to see infants left by the wayside or in dumpsters, by mothers who do not see their way clear to raise a child in this cruel world. I thank him that I weep when I hear of good things too, such as the miracle of new life, and at weddings.
I will no longer say, "please take away the pain", but ask the Lord to use the pain to equip me to be sensitive to the needs of others and to know when I am or when I am not in rightstanding with him.
I reach out to touch the heat of the stove, and pull back; I am slapped, and slap back. All of a sudden, I rejoice in my infirmities!
Job 23:10 But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
Psalm 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord deliverth him out of them all.
