As I woke up this morning, my whole body (particularly my shoulders, back, and jaw) reminded me of yesterday’s happenings. I went to the oral surgeon and chiropractor yesterday. To make a long story short, I learned that I have TMJD, which is from where all of the jaw and back/shoulder pain I’ve been experiencing is coming (not from my wisdom teeth coming in as we thought. In fact, my wisdom teeth are still too immature to take out and we’re waiting on that!). Right after I learned this, I had a chiropractor appointment for my shoulder/back pain, so I told Dr. Katie what I’d just learned about having TMJD. When she adjusted me, she did everything normal up until she started doing my jaw. The adjustments she did to my jaw were so painful; apparently your jaw muscles are some of the most tender ones in your body! I cried because what she was asking me to do (to open my jaw really wide as she massaged pressure points that were inflamed) hurt so much. So when I woke up so sore this morning, I thought to myself, ‘If my body hurts this much after going to the chiropractor, who is supposed to make it feel better, why do I do it?’ Well, I know the answer, of course. It’s to make it feel better. Even if it’s painful now, the adjustments will make it get better in the long run. If I just left it alone, it would only get worse.

Today it struck me just how true to life this is. When we have hurt and pain in our lives, the first reaction we have is to leave it alone. We rationalize, saying to ourselves, ‘No, if I dig that up or think about it too much, that’ll just hurt even more. I’ll just leave it be.’ What God has in mind for us is SO much better, though! He wants to take our hurt and our pain, our sin and our shame, and massage it out. He wants to work on the knots and the inflammation. He knows that it’s going to hurt. He’ll ask us to make movements while He’s adjusting us that will make us cry out “Why?” or cry real tears like I did in my appointment. He knows that, yes, it probably will hurt more the day after (or week after, or year after) than it did the day He started. But the whole point is to make it better for real, not just to pretend it’s okay and cover it up. He wants to HEAL it, to heal you and me. The question is, will we let Him?