Back up and give me some room, ole Grumps is about to wax philosophical. Sometimes I amazeses myself when I have these bouts of inspiration. I’ve been tossing things around in my head this morning that I could write about, and as I was brushing my teeth a minute ago it hit me. I have no idea why, but it hit me that we are all in this life thing together. Everything I do today will have some sort of an effect on someone else. Even a profession that appears to be singular in nature effects may lives, and the same is true of an individual sport. My son Josh is a dentist, and his skill is an individual talent. However, even though he could do what he does by himself, he can operate much more efficiently with the help of a dental assistant.  Tiger is the best professional golfer in the world, and golf appears to be an individual sport, but don’t you think his caddy helps him? Doesn’t Nike have a hand in his success, and vise versa?

Well since I think those examples make sense let’s apply those thoughts to families and church. Both Romans chapter twelve, and I Corinthians chapter twelve talk about the body being made up of many parts, and without those parts working together as intended the body cannot function properly. It says that the parts of the body that are seen and heard seem to be more important than the parts that are not seen or heard, but then it tells us that is not the case. Let me offer a few illustrations to this point.

I’ve already told you that I was the undefeated champion of bench guarding for the Loop Longhorn football team. I was never actually called on to defend the bench, but the coaches made sure that I was stationed, and at the ready, on that bench in the unlikely event the other team ever decided to come and take our bench. Did that mean I was not part of the football team? Absolutely not. Every day I dressed for practice and stationed myself in such a way that I sacrificed myself to make the team better. Every Thursday the team would practice kickoffs, and every Thursday Daddy Young would run down the field, and in a fashion that seemed funny to him, knock my jock in the dirt. So you see, I made Danny a better blocker by allowing him to hone his skill on my hunard an tuwney pound skeleton and skin body. Just think about it. Without me the mighty Longhorns may have gone 4 and 6 instead of 5 and 5, and even though my game uniform never had to washed because it was never soiled, I was contributing to the over all good of the team.

An injured body can’t function as it was intended, it may not be able to defend itself, as it should. Mike Young was part of the Longhorn team too, but his body suffered an injury, and so the team suffered too. You see I wasn’t big and bad enough to guard both the bench and the water can, so Mike had to man up in the slightly more likely event that the opposing team would commandeer the can. However, in the first scrimmage of the year against another team, Mike was knocked down, and while in the process of getting back to his feet received an injury that ended his playing career. As he placed his hand on the ground and began pushing himself upward someone hit his elbow, and the elbow socket was destroyed. It took two or three surgeries to get his elbow back in working condition, but even then it was never the same. Nerves had been destroyed that could not be repaired or replaced, and even though the arm worked he lost feeling in the little finger of his hand. I felt the need to check Mike out on this fact. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Mike or anything, I just thought he might be playing it for sympathy with the girls or something so I took it on myself to make sure he was on the up and up. Mike and I shared a lab desk in science class. He sat on the outside and I sat on the inside, which put me close to the Bunsen burner.  One day I caught him looking the other way and slipped the lighted burner under his no feel finger. Once I saw the blister start to form, and Mike had not taken his finger away from the flame, I was convinced that he was telling the truth. The injury had taken away his bodies natural ability to protect itself. It had lost it’s feeling. I was relieved to learn that his body could heal a burn even though it couldn’t feel the burn, but that’s another story.

I think I’ll leave it that today, tomorrow I’ll continue with this lost feeling thing.

Till next time,

Grump