Knots

-
In 2 days and 1 morning, I will be making my way to Nashville for my third half marathon.

Seems crazy, doesn't it?  It was only less than 3 years ago that I thought my running career may be over.  But praise God it is not.  In fact, I have two race metals from previous Rock-n-Roll events, and I'll be going after a third at the Country Music 1/2 this weekend.  

But there's been one catch.  

A week and a half ago, I started to develop some tightness in my right leg.  The kind of tightness, as I found, that is pulling on my knee and making running a pain.  Not fun.  As a result, I scheduled a couple of appointments with the incredible sports massage therapist that helped me recover from my achilles tendonitis injury last Fall.  This miracle worker, Sara (who works with players from the Hawks and Falcons) is freakin' incredible and knows how to get these things worked out.

So today after work I was on the table and "the spot" (that pain in the gluteus maximus that is pulling at my knee) is being worked on... and all of the sudden I have this sudden pain sensation!  OW!  She hit a knot... and then another knot... and then another knot.  It hurt... a lot.  And given that I have a race to run and a leg to heal... guess what I did.

Keep it coming.  I need these knots gone.  I'll deal with the pain.  And yes, it was very uncomfortable.

And right now I'm sitting down, writing this blog, and feel like I have a brand new leg... because when the harm was being worked out and it was painful, I didn't make the therapist stop.

And healing happened.

Come to think of it... that's kind of how those deep areas of our souls (if we're honest) really eventually get healed.  We let someone into our lives... and our pain, dysfunction, sin is hit...

And instead of pushing back and telling our friend to stop, shut our lives to the truth that sets us free... 

We endure the pain.

We work through it.

And we let our friend dig deeper.  

We repent... and keep repenting... Our friend doesn't let us off.

And eventually, through a lot of work... a partnership with God and our trusted friends...

We are healed.

And it makes all of the pain of exposure and revelation worth it. 

But first, we have to let them work the knots. 

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend" - King Solomon.

Do you have a faithful wound-er in your life?  Are you letting them in to work? :-) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The B(C)S Strikes Again

-
I'm laughing, again.  Somehow, some big conference elites somewhere are trying to sell college football fans that the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) is a flawless way to determine who should play for a national college football championship.  Every year, the "system" flirts with controversy, and manages to bring up some really good points over the years.   One of the classic arguments that they like to bring up is... "Every game counts" Hmmmmm .... what about Texas 45, Oklahoma 35?   In the BCS standings now, guess who's #2?   OU ... who's #3?  t.u.  ....Every game counts, eh?   Apparently , "what have you done for me lately" and a bunch of computers spitting stats count a lot more now than the results on the field.... too funny.   In a twist of fate, the Big XII South, arguably the best division in college football, has a three way tie for first place with three teams at 7-1 (11-1 overall) and all ranked in the top 7 in the BCS standings.  
Read more

A twist on a familiar parable.

-
Back from Labor Day Retreat, managing to keep from being sunburned and bowled over by Hurricane Gustav, I am enjoying a quiet evening relaxing and mulling over some of the happenings and ways that God had been speaking to me over the weekend.  This weekend has been great in that regard... God has used Brennan Manning (our speaker, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel) to really speak into my life and has obviously left me with a lot to noodle over.   I'll share with you one of those things... something that I thought was really interesting. In one of his talks, Brennan turned around and talked about Jesus's famous parable of the prodigal son as if when He was talking about the character of the prodigal, think about it as if Jesus was characterizing himself as the "prodigal."  This is, in my mind, very scandalous... considering that Jesus IS the perfect Son of God and I'm not really thinking at all that the parable's character was necessarily intended to be Jesus..
Read more

Top Ten Signs You've been going to NorthPoint too long

-
Image
I've had this on the brain for a while... I need a mental candy break though. For myself, or for any of my friends who are members of one of the NorthPoint Ministries campuses (that means Buckhead, Browns Bridge... you know who you are), there are (admit it) signs that you've been going to this church for way too long.  And now, like any person that needs to get out of their denial, I'm going to point out a few :-) Top Ten Signs You've Been at NorthPoint for Quite Some Time 1.) You commonly use any of the following words in your daily conversation: Margin Life-giving Give, Save, Spend Environment CG Big Idea Virtue Bottom Line Safe 2.) Something that Andy Stanley said in a sermon inevitably makes it into your Bible study discussion. 3.) You don't see anything wrong with wearing the same T-shirt every Sunday for 30 Sundays in a row (a shout out to all of us UpStreeters!), and in case you haven't washed "this year's" shirt, you have
Read more