Hip Service

I learned some pretty profound things at my chiropractor’s office this week. One, I learned that when a woman you just met 30 seconds ago asks you to take off all your clothes and then lie on a table and “relax” so she can come in and massage your messed-up hip (and the adjacent butt cheek), it’s much easier said than done. I kept thinking, RELAX? Really? I’m naked. And I can hear not-naked people talking just outside the door of this tiny little room. But you want me to “relax”. Yeah, I’ll get right on that…

The other thing I learned was that when one little part of you is out of line, the rest of your life can and will suffer.

It seems that I have a hip that doesn’t want to stay where it’s supposed to (how old am I anyway that I have hip problems?). It’s been this way for years and years – I know because I’ve felt the pain and (I now realize) have suffered the consequences. I knew something was a little weird with it, but I didn’t know just how much trouble it was causing.

You see, when my hip is out and my pelvis rotates with it, it causes problems that literally span from my head to my toes. The painful inflamed cartilage in my rib cage that keeps me from sleeping every couple of months or so? From my hip. My crazy neck that causes headaches? Somehow related to my hip. The blue toenails on my left foot (no, it’s not nail polish)? You guessed it – my hip. Even the numerous damaged right shoes in my closet – they’re all missing pieces of rubber on the heel because my left foot rotates inward and kicks them every time I step. It’s all about the hip.

Suddenly I’ve realized that I’m not exactly falling apart like I’ve thought for years. I just have one major problem that is causing a lot of other little ones. Fix the major problem, though, and the others will clear up with time. But the funny thing is that I never dreamed my weird hip was the source problem – I just chalked it up to another little quirky thing about my body.

It got me thinking today. Could our spiritual lives work in much the same way? If we could take an x-ray of our hearts, could we possibly find one little shift that is capable of producing a myriad of painful consequences in our lives? I think so. And I think that just like my hip it would be something that we might know is off, but not so much that we suspect it of affecting anything else.

Maybe a shift in our quiet times with the Lord? Or perhaps a slight bend in our heart toward jealousy? I’m almost certain it would be something we would realize could use a little work, but wouldn’t be high on our list of blaring things that need to change. The thing of it is, though, that maybe if we corrected that one little “minor” issue, all those other more obvious problems would begin to fade away.

I’m thankful that we have access to an amazing physician Who can take that spiritual x-ray for us: “O LORD, You have searched me and know my heart … see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139). If we ask Him, our Father will help us see where we need a spiritual adjustment, because He knows our hearts better than we ever will.

I’m just now beginning the uncomfortable, slow process of changing the way my hip has been behaving for at least the past two decades. It’s not exactly going to be what I’d call fun, but the reward on the other side – the freedom from other pains and issues I thought I’d always have – is well worth the journey. I can only imagine how my life could be different if I allowed the Lord to work on those little spiritual misalignments.

Sounds like I’ve got some praying to do, huh?

I think I’ll start working on that. Then maybe I’ll watch some more of the Olympics and try to “relax” (seriously, that word has lost all meaning to me now…).