Maybe you remember how children with cerebral palsy were helped at one time. Teams of friends took a shift and for eight hours a day, that child’s limbs were exercised in patterned movements designed to re-ignite the brain to produce normal motion.
Years before research proved the plasticity of the brain, this practice was an early expression of the reality that sometimes….the body teaches the brain.
I know this is a wild leap, but God does something like this for our souls in the season of Lent, so soon upon us. We are “patterned” through a time of chosen sacrifice and loss. But it’s not forever and it’s not the whole story. Easter morning always comes.
In a sacred sort of rhythm, our souls learn and re-learn the pattern of God’s movement in our lives. Sorrow, loss, sacrifice….lead somewhere. We are taught to actually anticipate redemption. By this means is hope born.
I don’t know about you, but I often face the temptation to see some particular event in my life as random, meaningless, or worse…just-what-I-deserve. I put a period where God puts a “to be continued.”
If I pay attention, though, to the way God patterns my soul, then I realize, no, this is only a step in the direction of something good, something that smells like Easter morning.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good…” Psalm 34
One Response to “Soul Palsy”
This blog spoke to me so profoundly tonight. Thank you Paula for allowing God to use you to touch, and to soften, the hearts of women.