What Hurts You?

I suffer from joint pain almost every day. My hands and feet hurt me terribly every morning and even when I wake from a nap. Some days are worse than others. But it usually gets better once I’m up and around so I have come to sort of accept it.

Then, while I was in the mountains last week I realized halfway through the week that my familiar friend was missing. My hands might have been slightly stiff but there was no pain. It was so strange. And then after one night in the valley, I woke up in pain again.

Why did it go away? Why did it come back? Was it the altitude? (If the Lord is telling me to move to the mountains, I’m all over that...) was it all the water I was constantly drinking (which seems to elude me here in the air conditioning..)? Was it the miles and miles of walking I did?

I was thinking this morning how we often have “mountaintop experiences” where we get to go away to a place like this camp, be surrounded by the Lord’s beautiful creation, biblical teaching and uplifting music. We get to shed the pain of the world. We get to live apart from it and forget it for a time.

And how easy it is to land back “on earth” and be sucked back into the world, the worries, the temptations. Why do I need to worry about this thing today that didn’t even cross my mind last week? Why am I reminded of this pain in my soul when I was able to be free from it for 6 days?

My goal is to find what it was about last week that made my joint pain diminish. It must be possible. But more importantly, I need to remember the key ingredients to that spiritual health we all experienced and surround myself with it every day.

Even when it is 112 and I’m stuck in traffic....