Compensation….

 Compensation….

Before I start on the title, I have to admit to grumbling a bit during this one armed ordeal….

I was walking up the steps of the local Post office…grumbling along the way…it seems like it takes twice as much  time to do things with one arm, the other arm gets tired, need to watch balance more, etc., etc., etc…..so attitude was not thankful in that moment…

I turned the corner after opening the heavy door to enter and coming toward me was a woman, shorter, older, on crutches with one leg…not one in a cast waiting to be healed, but missing…

And she smiled at me as I held the door for her with my one arm…a sharp arrow to my grumbling…

Okay,  back to compensation,  I have learned to do a lot of compensation…my pointer finger has become my “thumb” for a bit, while my middle finger has tried to become my pointer for  a little grip on easy things, my other hand has taken up the slack somewhat…neither has done the job well and all get tired doing double duty….

All of our body parts have a function…they do what they do the best…when one is missing in action, others try to help and are a helpful, but the whole is thankful when everything is working is their rightful places…

Sounds a bit like the family, the body of Christ…we fit together to work together in the places for which we are designed….everything goes much more smoothly when everyone is not trying to compensate for a broken or missing part…

Thank YOU…for Your plan…

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 

And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 

If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? 

If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 

If all were a single member, where would the body be? 

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 

On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. 

But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

1 Corinthians 12:12-27