Hebrews 12.12-13 NIV
“Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”
We are human beings. That’s what and all we are... humans prone to error, likely to stumble, and given to failure. When we interact with other humans, it’s not uncommon for feelings to get hurt and misunderstandings to arise. We can easily get our ‘nose out of joint.’ Sometimes (spiritual) surgery is required to reset the (emotionally) broken nose.
When my daughter was in middle school she played on a girl’s softball team. While playing catch between innings at her final game of the season, Julia was distracted and the ball bounced off her nose. She found out the hard way that softballs aren’t soft. I rushed Julia to the emergency room. Her enlarged and seriously discolored nose had literally relocated itself about half an inch to the right side of her face. It was both comical and horrifying, but mostly horrifying.
Surgery was scheduled and her nose was re-broken and forcibly moved back into position. The healing was completed and today Julia’s nose is no longer ‘out of joint.’ She looks great.
I am a human. I have been known to catch another human’s behavior, words or attitudes with my nose. The incident was probably not intentional by either party but I got my ‘nose out of joint’ nonetheless. The Bible offers an antidote to dislocated body parts. Quoting from Solomon’s wisdom which states…
“Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.
Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.”
Solomon, Proverbs 4.26-27 NIV
Solomon, Proverbs 4.26-27 NIV
...the author of Hebrews commands us to...
“‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame [broken nose]
may not be [permanently] disabled, but rather healed.”
Hebrews 12.13 NIV
Hebrews 12.13 NIV
When I get my ‘nose out of joint’, I need to push it back into place where it belongs. To avoid becoming permanently “disabled.” I must learn to forgive and forget.
Life goes on. So must I.
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The image above is a political cartoon by award winning Australian illustrator Ron Tandberg. The cartoon appears to poke fun at the conflict between Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello both of whom were in office from 1996-2007.
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4 comments:
Those are really wise words. It's been a while since you wrote that, but it still hasn't lost its bite. There are indeed a lot of angles that one can glean from 'nose jobs' and what not. One of those is recuperation. Anyway, I hope that your kid is truly, absolutely all right at this point, and that this little bit of snafu is a mere fading memory now, due to how effective the fix may have been. Thanks for sharing!
Cordell Legaspi @ Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery Center
Thank you Cordell. Yes, her nose turned out fine. Thank you for your comment. I really appreciated it!
That is such a relief to hear. Illuminating too, seeing how those incidents can be framed within the possibilities of healing and recuperation and our understandings of it. Thanks for delineating all of those bit by bit, so we can move into places with what seems like the lowest plunges in the trajectory of our lives. Anyway, I hope the operation has prepped her up for the long term. All the best!
Byron Brewer @ Knight and Sanders
Thanks Byron.
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