Pain & Posture

I love general revelation. I love it when God reveals Himself through ordinary situations. I love finding God in everyday events or in random objects. (I actually did a project in seminary where I wrote curriculum for a retreat that dealt with this topic alone :D) I love it when an ongoing circumstance or repeated phrase or lesson finally sinks in. The light bulb comes on, and I suddenly have no choice but to stop where I am and thank God for revealing Himself in ways that are available to everyone yet so meaningful on a personal level.

Last night, God once again used an ordinary event to teach me something about Himself. But I also learned something about myself this time. I was reading about suffering and came across a quote that said something along the lines of 'suffering corrects your posture and adjusts your gaze.' Over the past year I've had quite a few back problems - I know, I'm getting old. :) But I've learned many things due to this pain, one of which is the fact that I can eliminate the pain if I make myself have perfect posture. If I can sit straight, pull my shoulders back, and basically make my spine rest in the way it was created to, I find comfort and relief from the pain. Likewise, returning our gaze to God by adjusting our perspective on a situation and correcting our posture towards Him can help lessen the pain of the situation. When we correct ourselves and return to what we were created to be, we see from a new perspective, allowing us to see the situation in a way that makes it somehow easier to bear. It's also important to remember that God may send trials for that exact reason--to make us fix our posture and adjust our gaze.

I've known this fact in my head for years. But for some reason, relating the truth to a physical feeling I had recently experienced somehow made it more real than in the past. My favorite part of the whole lesson is how it came out of nowhere. I love that about God--that He's always there but at certain times when you're least expecting it, He reveals Himself in a way that can't be ignored. We're forced to turn our gaze to Him. It's almost as if He's offering comfort even when we don't ask and when we don't even realize we need it. And now every time I have back pain, it will be a reminder that we are to continually adjust our gaze toward God and try to get back to what we were created to be. Correct your posture, and you will find relief.