Pain, Pillowcases And My Praisin' Arm

Pain, Pillowcases And My Praisin' Arm

Because Michelle, my friend, and Physical Therapist, is on the Praise Team at church with me, I felt free to tease her and tell her I needed my "Praisin' Arm" to work again.  I hold my microphone in my right hand and raise my left arm to praise our Lord as lyrics of a song bless my heart.  As we both laughed she said, "No problem"!  After a painful rotator cuff surgery, I had lost much of my range of motion.  In fact, my "praisin' arm" barely made it past my waist.
Most of the time I went four times a week and sweet Michelle heard nearly every story of my 71 years on earth.  She suffered through the planning of my 50th Wedding Anniversary and turned away when she stretched my arm so far I thought it would break and ignored my grimaces and groans because she knew that's what it would take to get well.  Every week she would measure my progress with her funny looking ruler and would report progress most times.  I shared my thoughts on the devotional I had read that morning, my prayer list and my grateful heart for all the Lord has done for me.  I loved it when she did the same in those early hours before the place was filled with patients.  I loved hearing stories of her little girls and shared our child-rearing ideas.  Mine from the 1970s and her currently were not all that different.

The pain was ever-present especially at first but she persisted.  I think of how the Lord sometimes lets us experience pain in our lives.  He stretches us to the limit to make us stronger and eventually well.  Oh, how he must have to turn away as we grimace and groan under the load that we carry.  After being "stretched out" I would get a warm pad on my arm that soothed those sore muscles.  Many times when I feel that I have been stretched to my limit the Lord soothes me with his presence and gives me encouragement through his word.

One of the exercises  I did was with a pillowcase over my arms.  I would go up the wall as far as I could with the pillowcase helping it to slide more easily.  Sometimes as we plead for instant answers to our prayers, he tells that His grace is sufficient for us.  Though we struggle the "Pillowcase of His grace helps us glide more easily through life with His constant, unfailing love.  Eventually my "Praisin' arm" begin to respond as me and my pillowcase reached higher and higher.  I teased Michelle endlessly that I was going to take my pillowcase to church so I could raise my arm farther into the air.

Finally, my "Praisin' arm" could go far into the air as if reaching for heaven itself.  As if the hand of God reached down to grab it as I praised Him.  As we go through life, we would do well to use our pain to grow, hang on to His grace as we are stretched and raise our "Praisin' arm" high and often.  Thanks, Michelle!

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:9-10