The last few months have been filled with doctors’ appointments, MRIs, brain surgery, specialists, therapists, and a whole barrage of questions and uncertainty.
As our family has walked down this path with my baby girl, things have not been easy. There have been nights filled with worry and anxiety. There has been plenty of uncertainty about the future.
Pretty soon, that anxiety started working its way into my shoulders. I’d wake up in the morning and my back would ache. Slowly, tension headaches started to creep their way up to the base of my skull.
I sometimes have a hard time justifying spending money to take care of myself, but after a particularly rough week, I decided to splurge and book a massage at a local spa. I needed a bit of peace for both my body and my mind.
Getting a massage got me thinking…sometimes it’s painful when the masseuse kneads those tight and tender areas, but the goal is not to cause you pain, but to ultimately grant you relief and restore function and range of motion.
Similarly, when God presses on those painful areas of our lives, it’s not because he wants us to experience pain, but because he wants us to experience relief. Sometimes the process is uncomfortable, but the end result is good.
This has been a painful season. Sometimes it feels like God has his finger right on the tenderest spot. He continues to massage it, push it, place a little pressure. In the short term, it has me asking for mercy. I just want the discomfort to be over.
In the long term, this season can serve a good purpose. It can enable me the flexibility to turn my head and look behind me. The aches and pains that had become a part of my daily life vanish. It ultimately enables me to enjoy life with more freedom of movement and less pain.
The process can be painful and uncomfortable, but the end result is good.
At the end of the massage, I didn’t want to move. My muscles felt loose and warm. My body and mind were relaxed. I was pretty sure that I could close my eyes and drift right to sleep.
At some point, God will finish working through those tight areas, and we’ll experience the relief that comes with entrusting yourself to the hands of a master.
“That’s why we are not discouraged. No, even if outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are being renewed each and every day.This light, temporary nature of our suffering is producing for us an everlasting weight of glory, far beyond any comparison,because we do not look for things that can be seen but for things that cannot be seen.For things that can be seen are temporary,but things that cannot be seen are eternal.”2 Corinthians 4:16-18
This is a good word, Sarah. Praying as you continue to trust God with your tenderest spots.