Stay Close to the Body

Recently I was in a severe accident resulting in several injuries. Among those injuries were two fractured elbows. Although still painful, my left elbow was a less severe fracture, so the doctors thought it best not to sling it and let it heal on it's own. My right elbow, however, had two severe fractures, a dislocation, and required surgery. The surgery required me to be in a cast for about two weeks, and then a brace another 4. Keeping the right arm stable was no problem, but not as easy to do with the left arm since it didn't have anything protecting it. I instinctively yet subconsciously held my left arm very close to my body..

The morning that I was getting ready to go see the doctor to get the cast removed from my right arm I realized what I had been doing with my left arm and had the conscious thought, “My arm feels so much better when I hold it close to the body”. I feel like this was a thought that the Lord sparked in my mind, and at once I was struck with the spiritual truth of that statement. When we are broken, the best place for us is close to the body. I was in a rush, so didn't have a lot of time to dwell on the thought, but it stuck in my mind. When I arrived at the doctor, they removed my cast and fitted me for my brace. They let me know that I could remove the brace for bathing, but provide this caution, “When your brace is off make sure and hold your arm close to the body”. Wow! The exact thing that the Lord had brought to my mind that morning was being spoken by my doctor. Medical proof of what I was instinctively already doing with my other arm.

As the days progressed I just couldn't get past the spiritual correlation. In my physical brokenness, I certainly have needed others. What has proven true in my physical brokenness is true in the spiritual realm as well. When we are broken, we must stay close to the body. There's something though, that I think we often forget. We all are broken. Not sometimes, but all of the time. The degree of our brokenness may be different during certain seasons of our life. But whether we are broken from addiction, abuse, life challenges, or from the fall of Adam we are all broken, all of the time.
​
In your brokenness, stay close to the body. We always do and always will need one another.   

---