Praise the Lord for a Broken Body

My family made a big decision to leave our very comfortable life and take a leap of faith.  It was truly our hearts being lead by prayer that went against everything our brains were telling us.  We wanted more land and space for our 3 boys to play, we wanted to get our hands dirty again.  We wanted to simplify our lives, our children's lives and reconnect with our small town roots.  BUT...we left great friends, fabulous neighbors, our elementary school, the home we built and loved.  As prayer would have it, it ALL worked out and we love our new home and school even more than we thought we could.

Last weekend was gorgeous and it was time to commence the first of our many outdoor projects.  It was time to get our fingernails dirty!  So, we began to move thousands of pounds of river rocks.  There is a flower bed next to my house that I want to turn into my herb garden and it was filled with layers of river rocks.  {far more than we thought at first glance!} Our plan was to remove the rocks, till the soil, add compost, plant herbs and line the bed with some of the river rocks.  It was a big job and a back breaking job.  As I plucked those rocks from the ground and threw them into the wheelbarrow, I hurt.  I pushed the wheelbarrow to our back yard over and over again and couldn't help but to praise God for my broken body.  

My body is, indeed, broken and I have rough days...sometimes days that are intolerable.  But, praise the Lord I was enjoying that gorgeous day with my family.  All the boys were helping with the River Rock cause and we were having a fabulous time together getting dirty, sweating and moving rocks.  What a joy!  I often think back to that less-than-encouraging Mayo Clinic doctor who looked at my studies and looked me in the eye and told me I should be in a wheelchair.  He told me my insides were so debilitated that he didn't know how I was standing in front of him with a smile on my face.  Even though my body was tired and moving river rocks is certainly not at the top of my list of things I would like to do, I was doing it!  I was using my arms and my legs and that alone is a HUGE blessing.  I should never take that for granted!

Fast forward a few hours.  Our two-day job was complete, we were beat and I headed straight to a hot bath.  As I sat on the couch relaxing, my old sprained ankle started to swell.  The longer I sat, the more joints started to ache.  Then, my sniffling nose that I had been fighting became a full-blown cold.  Very quickly I became miserable.  For the next two days I couldn't get out of bed.  I blame every bit of this reaction on being on the Humira.  It's purpose is to take my immune system down to nothing so my auto-immune disease doesn't fight my own body.  That is wonderful if you are just considering my Crohn's Disease.  But if you consider my ability to rebound after a really hard days work....its no fun.  My body was so depleted and tired that it just couldn't fight off the cold any more, and it took two days to repair the joint and muscle pain.  But PRAISE the LORD, right?  Indeed!  Humira has bad consequences for me.  BUT....it got me out of the hospital and out of excruciating pain.  Joint and muscle pain and a cold are not fun, but from my perspective it is cause to praise.  I am here!  I am enjoying my family.  My children have a mother who can participate in their life and we can be together as a family.  

Praise the LORD for a broken body.  For a broken body is better than no body.