When One Member Suffers

I cut myself cake decorating. Everyone tells me I will, and I choose to disbelieve it though it’s happened before. I look at my hand and wonder if I will have twin scars or if I will only have a single scar. Did I manage to cut the exact same place as last time?

The pain sliced my hand. I wondered if it would bleed and hoped it was merely a scratch, but the glove was severed. I pulled it off and went to the back to wash and get a bandaid, not realizing I’d thrown the knife in the garbage can as I went.

A tiny part of my body bled. It bled and bled. It couldn’t take care of itself. Sure, maybe eventually the blood would have dried over the wound and it would have closed up and healed, but how much blood would I have lost in the process? As it was, it bled through my bandages for at least an hour. The tiny part of my hand caused my whole hand to suffer. It hurt. My hand was rendered useless. For who can decorate a cake while bleeding? No one. You can’t get blood in the cake.

And the rest of my body suffered. Maybe it didn’t suffer in pain as my hand did, but my legs had to carry me to the sink and the first aid box, my ears had to listen while my coworker advised me on bandaging, my eyes had to make sure the blood wasn’t coming out past the bandage, my lungs had to keep breathing so I wouldn’t pass out, and my other hand and arm had to work together with the injured member to get it wrapped and under control. The whole body was necessary in healing, and the healing process was all directed by my head.

Without some parts of my body, I still would have healed. I could have healed without sight. I could have healed without advice. I could have healed without legs.  My head would have found another way to heal because my head loves my hand.

I have a lot of coworkers who have left the church. They are broken members of the body. They are bleeding through three bandaids, and as far as I can tell, no one is helping them. And while those members of our body are bleeding, how much blood are we losing? They’re just out there bleeding, and the church doesn’t realize it.

But that’s a lie. Because I am a part of the body, and I know they hurt. Why do I know they hurt? Because Jesus placed me in their lives to find out. He is the head, and he is ordering all things for the healing of his body.

I cannot heal them. The whole body must work together to bring healing to its members. I am just one step in the process. And the whole body must submit to God. He will order healing.

And we need those members of our body. Sure, we can function without eyes or without ears or without a kidney, but we function so much better with all our members in place. We need our lost members. We need them in the body and attached to the body and functioning with the body. The body is the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. If the body loses a part, that part of the body is not filling everything in every way as intended. It’s just hanging out, not reaching the part of the world Jesus created it to reach. Our members are important, even if we learn to function without them.

Things to pray for:

Wisdom about Bible Study.

My boss’s wedding is this week! Hooray! I’m so excited to get to hang out with her and my other coworkers outside of work! Please pray that we will have a chance to have good conversations—either conversations about Jesus, or conversations that will lead to Jesus later.

A couple people have come to me lately with the huge and dark and painful issues in their lives. Although I knew what I was getting into before I met with them, the truth of the world hit me a lot harder than I thought it would. Please pray that God would continue sustaining me through all of this and that I would do the work he has for me in these situations. (I’ve been in these situations before, so I know he will. Hooray!) Also, please pray that I will continue going to God for support in all of this.