Today I am going to proceed without Scripture, not because it is incapable of breaching the subject, but because I am incapable of bringing to bear what a specific Scripture and context say about it. Or, to cite the Scriptures that dig deep enough into the subject would require too much space. So in lieu of starting with Scripture I will cite narratives within the Bible as they pertain to the picture as a whole. Without any further ado, let us begin!
Injury. It may be a pulled hamstring or a broken heart, but all injuries fall into two categories: acute or chronic. An acute injury is something that has never happened before. It may come suddenly in an accident, or there may be a period of wearing down until finally something tears. In the case of a chronic injury, an acute injury has already taken place, but it has either not healed properly, correctly or is still in a weakened condition.These assumptions form the basic nature of all injuries.
Injuries happen when the body is introduced to more stress than it can handle. This can be blunt force trauma, too many nights without sleep or a nagging thought that goes unanswered. But what happens when an injury takes place? The body compensates for it. It stiffens, inflames, and releases protective coatings all in a relatively short period of time. Not only does the body apply a solution to the affected area, it also compensates by placing the former workload onto other muscles.
In the case of muscular injury, other muscles will acquire the former workload. A limp will form, shoulders will sags, necks will refuse to revolve, and all because the body is finding a way to continue moving while hurting. Given a continuous injury without proper recovery time, and more injuries will occur. New acute injuries will form as the body succumbs to stress, or old injuries that were never fully healed will resurface. In short, not dealing with an injury properly can cause more injuries in the future.
I understand this from personal experience. When I was in college I hurt my ankle. I didn't rehab it properly and assumed that when it had stopped hurting it had fully healed. As the rest of my body compensated for my ankle, I pulled my left hamstring. Which lead to a pulled right hamstring, another pulled left hamstring, a tight right hip flexor, a stubbornly stiff left low back, which made its way up to the right side of my neck and down to the left shoulder. Now to be perfectly honest, I was recruiting these muscles to pole vault. But the root of my injury started in my foot and worked its way up my body. Why? Because the body is a kinetic chain, it all starts and stops with our feet.
In the last year, I have made substantial strides in strengthen my feet through a pair of funny looking shoes called five-finger toes. I noticed that as my body got used to the new shoes, kinetic chain issues in my knees, hip flexors and lower back began to resolve themselves. All I had to do was not over do it.
As my legs got healthier, so did my back and shoulders, but my shoulders would not heal on their own due to other chronic injuries exacerbated by heavy lifting. What can I say, I love fitness! And while moving kept my body feeling healthy, it didn't provide the recovery exercises I needed to fully strengthen and re-align my aching left shoulder. Today when I went into the gym, I went specifically to work at the pace of my left shoulder. I worked my shoulders in tandem so I wouldn't be lopsided. And guess what happened? I hurt the right side of my neck :) Why? Because of the kinetic chain of injuries I created while in college. It's not simply about addressing one or two target areas to be healthy, but addressing my whole body and bringing it into a state of health. Which is hard when all I want to do is run, jump, sprint, do burpees and have fun. I need to move from a place of health, work through and out of injuries and get myself back to a place where I can do what I love.
I would consider this a common fitness axiom, but is much harder to do than say. We can always go a bit further, even when we're starting to feel a little discomfort. Especially since running feels so good!Which is how I ended up with a strained hamstring today. I knew it was a little uncomfortable, but I thought I would be fine. I really wanted to do some barefoot sprinting! Injuries aren't always predictable :)
Where's the spirituality in this? Consider that ALL injuries happen this way, not just physical injuries, but mental and emotional too. We push too hard because we find something that we really want and really like, only to find that we've gone to far and hurt ourselves. When we hurt ourselves emotionally, we need time to recover, just as the body does from a sprain or tight-pinching muscle group. Do we like sitting around waiting to recover? No. Do we always do what we need to, to fully recover before getting up and back on the field? No, once the pain is gone, or manageable, we get back out on the field and keep playing. The problem with this mentality is that it begins a chain of linked injuries, taking a lot of time and focus to undo. I think I can spare the biblical examples on this because we all know its true; to live is to become injured. I can think of no person who has never had to deal with an injury in their life. I know people who have not broken bones, but have broken hearts. I know people who've never risked their heart, but have very low functioning bodies (I consider this an injury, as it stems from a place of discomfort while moving, usually the result of a muscle imbalance, poor habits or a physical deformity) Injury isn't always something that happens due to an accident, sometimes we are born injured, as in the case of a physical deformity. By no means do I consider this a reason for inactivity, everyone can find a way, find a pattern and get active! As long as we can still breath we can move and make something with what we have. We are never without hope.
If I were to use a biblical concept for the way I am using injury, that word would be sin. We all deal with injury; we are all sinners. We all have portions of our bodies and our emotions that suffer from a kinetic chain of injury; we all sin enough for it to cause problems in our lives. We are born with the propensity to injury ourselves; we are all born sinners. It's not that sin causes us to sin, its part of who we are. And since sin is like an injury, it too can be dealt with. It can be overcome. But in order for it to be overcome, we must walk in the ways of one who doesn't sin. Which means that we must walk in the ways that no human is fully capable of walking. Which means that God himself would have to show us a better way to walk, and live it before our eyes. This is who Jesus is. God in the flesh. Fully man, with all the temptations and injuries; fully God, able to overcome and resist them.
Jesus works with a lot of injured people. The only people he can help are those who admit their injured. Everyone else he can't help, because they won't listen to his words of healing; they don't listen to his words because they sound foreign, incapable of helping with the pain of their current injury. Jesus wants everyone to be whole. He has the capacity to do that, and has already overcome every injury imaginable. He faced them all when he died on the cross. And he died to show he had power over the greatest injury. Death. Jesus experienced all our injuries and took them with him to the cross. He took all of my relational hamstrings, stubborn minded shoulders, unlistening ankles and gave me the chance to be whole. All I have to do is follow his lead, and accept him as healer of my life. Which is of course easier said than done.
Healing isn't easy. The worst pain imaginable is when a physical trainer puts all his effort into the tight knot of a strained hamstring. It hurts worse than broken bones, but is necessary to break up scar tissue. Healing doesn't always have to hurt, as there are slow thoughtful daily movements we can make to slowly overcome our injuries, but sometimes we need to set broken bones by re-breaking them. So what does the healing of Jesus feel like? It's slow and easy, yet hard and painful. Most of the time it's hard and painful is because I've become so entrenched in the way an injury makes me move, that I've forgotten what healthy movement feels like. These are the times I find the most challenging, I know I need to change my habits, but I don't know how to change them.
Does following Jesus mean we will be injury free? No, but it does mean that we will always have a trainer we can turn to for help. Someone who understands what we're going through because he went through it too and he overcame it. He gives us the strength to overcome any injury we face. No matter how gnarly or how long we've had it. He can even heal the injuries we are born with. He is that powerful.
So why aren't we following Jesus? Because we think we can heal on our own. Which usually means we go just far enough, until our current injuries stop hurting so bad, only to find new ways of bringing back old pains. Jesus can put our old pains to rest. He can restore us to running and jumping and burpees in all areas of life! That is why I follow him, even when I trip and stumble, because I know he'll always reach a hand out to me and help me back on my feet, even when I don't know what to do next.
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