Christ is Charity

It’s been another long week. I keep saying that, don’t I? “Life is hard, but I can do hard things” is my new motto, thanks to one of my professors, because recovering has honestly been one of the hardest moments of my life. Even as I type this on this shuttle to Vegas, I still flinch or tense up every time it feels like the van is going to break down…even though it’s just the bumpy road. The mental consequences from the accident weren’t too severe but were just enough to cause me to lose sleep a couple of nights in a row.  But the physical consequences…I still can’t believe what’s happened.

Having WIFI on a shuttle is the coolest thing ever

I feel SO blessed that my friends and family suggested that I go to a chiropractor. I feel even more blessed that I have friends and visiting teachers that willing drive me every M/W/F, at 9 am!  It’s been ROUGH. At every appointment so far, I’ve gone in for a 30-minute massage and I’m sure that sounds wonderful.  And, sure, some days it is and other days, it hurts like heck.  I lie there and am told to relax while someone beats up my spine and neck…I mean massages “gently.” There’s three different girls in the office and based off who I’m with pretty much decides my mood for the rest of the day.  After my massage (or before, depending on the day), I go see the doctor, who “taps” my neck, back, and tailbone into place, with a clicker machine and then he cracks my neck and pushes my hips back into place. It’s lots of fun…okay really it’s not.  I normally leave sorer and in more pain than before and I end up really discouraged—at least on the bad days.  The day after I feel fine but it takes 24 hours until that point. 

Anyway, recently I’ve been thinking a lot about why this happened to me and I finally learned for myself.  I’m not going to share that over the internet because it’s sorta personal (come talk to me if you want though, and I’ll tell you).  But I do want to talk about something I learned in New Testament class this week.

In class, we’ve been studying Paul and his epistles and this week, we were studying the last half of first Corinthians.  We got to Corinthians 13, which is all about charity.  In my lifetime in the church, anytime someone mentions charity, the definition that comes to my mind is “the pure love of Christ.” Now that’s a great place to start but it never got much deeper than that.  My professor, Brother Griffin, didn’t disappoint me.  We started talking about how Christ is charity, so if you replace that verse with Christ, it reads “Christ suffereth long and is kind…”  He asked us for examples of when Christ exemplified these attributes.  A class member answered and explained that when Christ came out of the garden, Judas betrayed Him. Peter, being so angry, cut off one soldier’s ear.  And Christ simply healed the ear.  The point that was so powerful to me is that Christ didn’t say anything about His pain and suffering He had just gone through in the Garden.  He didn’t say, “You don’t know what pain is.”  He simply healed the soldier’s ear. 

See, I think too often you and I are quick to assume that others don’t know what we’re going through.  I mean, how many of you reading this have had your spine and neck off alignment? My guess is probably not. And recently, I get frustrated when people don't seem to realize that I'm still hurting pretty bad. See, the human tendency is to go through suffering and be hardened, saying things like you don’t know what I’m going through.  Instead, we need to go through suffering and come out Christlike.  Christ has felt every pain we’ve ever felt and He does know what we’re going through.  Now, it is no easy task to be Christlike when trials arise.  Every day I struggle with discouragement and pain.  However, I know that through Christ, I will be healed, physically AND mentally.  Through these chiropractor appointments, faith and prayers, I will be healed.  This definitely isn’t easy and it’s far from being over, but I know that if I take charity and apply it to my life and situations, that I will have continued faith and overcome this trial.