Inward parts…

 Inward parts….

Colonoscopy….the dread word…the dread preparation…the dread procedure….

Because I have a variety of cancers in my family history, I have the opportunity to get screened for some every once in awhile…this week is was for colon cancer…my mom had colon cancer, was treated with success…my cousin had it for several years and finally succumbed to it, a young amazing man…

“They” keep saying the preparations for the procedure are the hard part…the exam the easy part…the nurse reiterates that over and over…and so it was…

 As I was going through the prep, I thought of the verses that actually talk about bowels in the Bible…there are 5…in Numbers, 2 Chronicles, and Acts…

The first one is about faithfulness…

May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’ “Then the priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness. And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain. And the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand and shall wave the grain offering before the Lord and bring it to the altar.

Numbers 5:22-25

The second ones about unfaithfulness…

and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out because of the disease, day by day.’” And the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabians who are near the Ethiopians. And they came up against Judah and invaded it and carried away all the possessions they found that belonged to the king's house, and also his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jehoahaz, his youngest son. And after all this the Lord struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease. In the course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his fathers. He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he departed with no one's regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

2 Chronicles 21:15-20 

The third one about guilt…

“Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

Acts 1:16-19

But my favorite ones are about God’s care and creation…

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:13-16

And yes, the preparation is worse than the actual procedure…but, those pictures of our inward being, the scope the doctor uses, give glimpses of what God made…so intricately are amazing…

Thank YOU….