Part of that involves me sticking my hand through a glass door (long story), getting a few really bad cuts, and in the end eighteen stitches. Thankfully, it's healing well, and I appear to not even be suffering nerve damage--which is nothing short of a miracle.
So, even though it's healing, you must understand that it is not fully back to normal yet. Two of my fingertips (as that was where two of the cuts were) feel especially sore when pressed on, and my middle finger--which was cut at the very bottom of my finger) is extremely swelled, and do to that swelling feels a little funny.
I have a reason for explaining this all to you, I promise.
The other day, my youth group went to my camp, in which is a fifty foot tall rock wall climbing tower. They only had the hard part open. I had climbed it before, and though it was very hard it was achievable. I was to the point with my hand where climbing wouldn't really damage it at all, so I gave it a shot.
At about ten feet from the top, I couldn't do it anymore. I reached, trying desperately to finish what I had started. I had never backed down on that wall, not once. But because my right hand wasn't fully functioning, I couldn't do it. My hand felt like it was on fire, and I could barely move my middle finger. I tried for several minutes. Sometimes I even got pretty close, but I just couldn't do it.
Why?
Because I didn't have every piece of my body working together as it was designed to. There was a flaw; several pieces were not doing what they needed to do, making it impossible to accomplish what I wanted done.
Like my physical body, the body of Christ needs to all be in sync. Every piece needs to be working, and working together with other parts of the body. Yet even if one little part falters even a little, it stops the body from doing what Christ wanted it to do.
We are, of course, sinful creatures. Because of our sinful nature, we are destined to sin. There is no way around it.
But when the Church stands together, despite denominational differences, backgrounds, preferences, genders, it can do (only in and through God) some pretty incredible things.
Your thoughts?
"For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us." Romans 12:4-6