hurting body part

I cut my finger yesterday.  Badly.  It actually stopped bleeding pretty quick (which immediately made me pray for my friend AD), but it really hurt.  I was hand washing our kitchen knives the day after my Love had sharpened them at my request.  My finger slid along the edge of the blade and cut deep.  The wound was pretty ugly.  My finger was throbbing, tingling, and numb.  I felt like I was going to faint.  Like I do in such a situation as this, I emailed my husband.  I sometimes have this fear that I am going to drop dead and my kids are going to be left in the house unattended all day.  I probably have seen too many movies.  Anyway I think I wrote something like, "I cut my thumb...Call me later to make sure I haven't fainted".  He isn't easy to reach by phone at work.  I really don't remember physically feeling like this before.  I was becoming worried that I might have damaged nerve endings.  The tenderness in my little appendage was proving to consume my thoughts.  The rest of my body wanted to do nothing else but pay attention to the needs of the hurting body part.


Of course this experience got me thinking.  So it should be with the body of Christ.  If one person is in need or hurting, the rest of the body should stop what they are doing in a sense to help them.  I think sometimes we get so caught up in our part's function/purpose that we tune out the other pressing needs of the body.  Some needs that are in fact an emergency.


Oh Lord, show me what I can do to help, support, love the body of Christ.  


My thumb was bumped several times through the day.  The pain was excruciating.  The blood would often come again (momentarily) because the wound needed more time to heal, to close up.  My initial instinct was to cover it up with a bandage, but after awhile it actually felt better to have it out exposed to the air.  Every time I hit it on something though, I would stop what I was doing to deal with the pain again.  I didn't turn away and say "Heal already!" or "Not again!"  Of course not.  I understand that healing takes time.  Needs aren't always met in one swift swoop.  God's process of healing and restoring a "part of the body" takes awhile and is done for a purpose.


Thank you Lord for a cut thumb that is healing and for giving me a reason to seek out ways I can help hurting body parts.