Where's my dreamcoat?

Jasmine and I are reading through the Bible in a year and Jan 17th took us to the end of Genesis. After seemingly endless chapters of genealogies and people "begetting" other people, we finally have come to the end of the first book of the Bible.  I'm not sure where you are today. It's Friday and many of us have the weekend ahead, even a three day weekend. However, the break from work doesn't always mean a break from responsibility, a break from life. For many of us work is our escape, our way to distract ourselves from the numerous aspects of life that are out of our control. In Gen 50 we find Joseph looking back on the events of his life and showing tremendous grace to his brothers in light of what they did. 50:20: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
 Looking back on the story of his life, we could say that Joseph kept his mind off his own suffering by consuming himself with his work.  Here is a guy that was sold by his family into slavery, falsely imprisoned, and left in jail because the cup bearer was too self absorbed to remember the guy who gave him hope, yet through his whole story we never read that Joseph felt sorry for himself, or that he was depressed and questioning why these terrible things keep happening.  I don't think it's because it never happened, but because it isn't the focus of the story.  Feeling sorry for himself and saying "Woe is me" isn't the point.  Joseph's story is about persevering, it is about serving God and doing what needs to be done regardless of what we may be dealing with.  It is a story of believing that God is working in even the darkest moments of our lives.  
Some times it does come across a bit cliche, or even thoughtless, but it is true: things are not always what they seem, no matter how deep or dark the place is that we find ourselves. When we are hurting or struggling in life we don't want to hear "It could be worse" or "God has a plan". We want to hurt and we want people to hurt with us so that we don't feel so alone. But when we are ready to pick ourselves up, or be picked up which is often the case, these words of Joseph will hopefully resonate in our souls. God is working. We are not alone, He is right there with us.

We all fall down.

I fell this past weekend… 5 steps into my morning run I took my eyes off the path to adjust my new armband/phone thing I got for Christmas, and subsequently missed the uplifted square in the sidewalk.  The same square I look at every time I run; the same one that always prompts me to say “Gotta watch out for that one.”  I caught my toe and down I went.  I managed to stop my fall with my hands , but in doing so I scrapped the palm off one of my gloves and well the palm off my palm.  As I’ve gotten older I’ve been more cautious, less prone to taking chances.  It’s been a while since I’ve had anything like this happen and boy did it hurt.  Those of you who have had the pleasure of injuring your slightly older selves probably know what I’m talking about.  It’s not just the injury itself, it’s the after effects.  The sore muscles from guarding, the wrist from taking the brunt of the impact, the shoulder from twisting funny, the upper back… you get the idea.  It’s not just my hand that hurts, everything hurts.  The fact that the whole body is connected is never more apparent than when one part isn’t working quite right, or is outright broken. 

Scriptures tell us that Paul was no stranger to physical affliction.  I’m sure he had his own sufferings in mind when he wrote his letter to the Corinthians.  “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it”.  This is as true of the physical body as it is of the spiritual body.  We hurt when loved ones hurt.  If our community suffers we suffer along with it.  This reality was made all too real this last December.  As a nation we grieved with the families of Sandy Hook.  Just as there are many approaches to healing a physical injury, we each dealt with the tragedy of Newtown in our own way.  Some good, some admittedly, not so great.  One thing we all must agree with: just as we cannot cut off an injured body part (although we might wish we could) we can’t simply cut each other off just because that part of the body “heals” in a different way.  

I work in a physical therapy office and I see patients everyday with varying levels of injury.  Some may never make it back to where they were before their injury and others can be expected to make a full recovery.  Both groups have at least one thing in common: it’s going to take a lot of hard work from all parts of the body if anything is going to get better.  But for everyone: we want to be stronger to hopefully prevent re-injury, and if possible, maybe a little smarter.  You can bet that square of concrete will not get the best of me a second time.