Our Body

     Have you ever thrown a rock into a still lake?  When it hits the water, it makes waves that ripple across a large area,  I've noticed that same effect happening in my body and even in my Church.
     I've had bad headaches since in was eleven years old.  But in my thrities, my headaches became unbearable.  My sister, Carmen, worked in a pain center and she suggested that I try coming in.  I made an appointment and went in.  The first thing the doctor tried was cortisone shots once a week, in my neck and back.  Next I attended a pain management group. and lastly I visited, Fay, who taught biofeedback.
     During one of my appointments to Fay, I had a terrible headache.  She hooked me up to the biofeedback machine.  The machine showed that my stress level was very high.  Fay told me that the pain I was feeling in my head was the shadow of the real injury.  Next, she massaged small areas of my back and neck.  The pain started to melt away.  She told me that the areas that she was massaging were shadow areas.
     During that time at the pain center, the doctor found that I had a fused vertebra and that was causing my headaches, the pain in my neck back arms and face.  That pain in my neck rippled to other parts in my body.
     The Bible talks about the Church as being one body.  1 Corinthians 12:12 says, "The body is a unit through it is made up of many parts and through all its parts are many, they form one body."  Just as all of our parts form one body, all of the different parts of the Church form one body.  And as in the human body, there can be a shadow pain rippling through that body.  1 Corinthians 12:26, "if one part suffers, every part suffers with it ; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it."
     The next time you feel depressed and you can't understand why, pray for someone else.  The next time you are tired or angry, or maybe even have a loss of Faith, without any real reason, pray for those closest to you.  Pray for your Church body.  Romans 8: 26-27 says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weekness.  We do not know what to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."  You might never know what injury you might have helped by using your own shadow pain as a place to start a healing prayer in your body, and in the Church body.  And just as the rock can cause a ripple in a calm lake, our intercessory prayer can cause a ripple of Faith, happiness and health in our Church .