Contact Me

If you enjoy my blog and would like to contact me, you may reach me at this email: dena.netherton@gmail.com

Some of my stories are published in:
A Cup of Comfort Devotional for Mothers and Daughters (Adams Media, 2009)
Chicken Soup: What I Learned from the Dog (2009)
Love is a Flame (Bethany House, 2010)
Extraordinary answers to Prayer (Guideposts, 2010)
Love is a Verb (Bethany House, 2011)
Big Dreams from Small Spaces (Group Publishing, 2012)

Monday, October 10, 2011

The Domino Effect

My back hurts. I don't know what I did to it, but it's been bothering me for several months now.

At first it was just a little ache in my lower back. I ignored it.
Then the pain intensified.
I've done all the usual and logical things to treat my pain. I:
  • make some amendments to my sitting posture 
  • get up and move around every fifteen minutes or so
  • exercise
  • take ibuprofin occasionally
  • change to a better office chair
  • see the doctor and have x-rays
  • do the exercises my doctor suggested
  • purchase a desk that moves up and down so I can stand and type
None of these improvements have helped.
Lately, the pain has been spreading downward to my hips. Every time I get up. . . ouch!
And, in the past couple of weeks I've noticed that the tendons around my knees are starting to hurt. I'm thinking that whatever is going on in my back has set in motion an unpleasant Domino effect. If I don't get some professional help soon, my ankles may be the next Domino to fall!

I thought, isn't this just like so many other life-situations?
  • a problem with one member in the family tends to spread and affect the other members
  • a conflict at work tends to work its way throughout the entire department, with employees takings sides for or against the issue
  • a small protest in Manhattan grows in intensity and numbers and spreads to other cities
  • and we've probably all seen what happens in a church when a disagreement foments greater and greater conflict within its membership
I guess the solution to my little back problem is to take care of the pain when it's small and manageable. Before it spreads like a wildfire and becomes uncontrollable and painful in other areas.
I think I've learned my lesson: Just because it's only a small part of my entire body that's hurting doesn't mean that I can dismiss its cries for attention.
Same thing goes for the community, the school, the company, the government, the church.

"But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." (1 Cor. 12: 24-26 NIV Bible)


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