The Body - The Church

Six weeks ago I tumbled down my daughter’s basement steps and broke my arm. Based on the bruises on my hip and at the base of my spine and on both legs, and the lump on my head, I am quite fortunate to have only broken my arm – the radius, about two inches above my wrist - my right arm.

Because of the swelling and the fact that the bones were not displaced, the ER doc put me in an air cast and the next day the orthopedist said the arm could stay in the air cast until it was healed enough to fend on its own. This was wonderful because the air cast is held together with Velcro strips, easily loosened so I could shower without a bag over my hand and arm.

The arm hurt, but pain meds took care of most of the pain, but any, any effort to use that arm caused shooting pains. So, I had no choice - I began to use my left arm. Here is the allegory that has developed over these six weeks.

In the beginning the pain affected the whole body. The body said, “this is too much, just let me lie down awhile.” Then it began to say, “Just take a pill, we have work to do and we can’t let that broken right arm keep all the rest of us from getting things done.”

When the left hand was told it was now going to have to do most of the work, if not all of the work, it sighed and said it would do its best, but keep in mind that it had been underutilized for more than 60 years so it might take a few days to get up to speed.

It was only a few days later that the left hand complained that it was getting VERY tired of having to do all the work and couldn’t the right hand help out at least a little? The brain patiently explained that the right arm was still quite injured (it actually sent a jolt of pain through the body so all the members could get some idea of what was happening) and that it would most likely be quite awhile before the right hand could even help out.

The left hand sighed and said it needed a little rest but it would continue to do its best. In fact, in the next several days it needed many rests and the whole body took advantage and rested with it. But about a week later, when asked to do yet another task, the left hand suddenly realized that the tasks were easier and it was doing more and more, and most things better and better, each day. “I told you so.”, said the brain.

Another week after that, the left hand had a tendency to gloat just a bit over its increasing ability. The brain warned it not to get too cocky and the feet murmured in agreement.


In I Corinthians 12 Paul tells us that "The Body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts...and so it is with Christ." He goes on to say "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it..."

We are the Body of Christ and we need to function as a whole, but when one part suffers, the rest of the body needs to adjust, and pitch in, and continue to function as a whole.