“Let all that you do be done in love.”
The apostle Paul
I am upset with my knees, especially the right one. I believe there is an internal mutiny happening in the hinge joint consisting of a conspiracy between my IT band, lateral and medial menisci and I have heavy suspicion that my anterior cruciate may have joined the rebellion. I did not see this coming. The signs were there – popping walking down stairs, achy after exercise, etc., but denial is powerful. This is not my first dance with mutineers. The lumbar vertebrae turned against me a decade ago. We have come to a truce. I don’t push them and they don’t punish me. The cervical vertebrae have done the same thing, especially the team of numbers three, four, and five. The prospect of cutting through the front of my neck to get to those traitors is disquieting so we just deal with each other. The gall bladder acted up some time ago and I eliminated him, never to return. The calcaneus pair (somebody called the “achilles”) tried to cause problems but those have been fixed and limited in scope. They don’t say much anymore.
The knees are my guys. They have carried me through jumping forcefully on the basketball court for years and hundreds of thousands of starts and stops and quick cuts on the tennis court. They stood in the gap for marathons and thousands of miles of training. They pedaled me to Kansas. Now, their infrapatellar pad has joined the uprising. Sometimes I wish I could just disfellowship them like the gall-bladder. Doc says I could replace them with something less efficient. Knees are very complicated but very essential for health. It takes ten muscles just for them to work. They need a team. They suffer from a lot of stress. But, I need them. It’s hard to stand up without them. How will I put my clothes on without these guys? Don’t even get me started about how I’m going to look walking if they don’t bend a little. We are just going to have to cooperate like me and the vertebrae.
So why am I sharing the story of my rebellious body? Because my body is a unit, a system that needs to work together, a collection of different parts with various roles that must cooperate or the whole system suffers. The diversity of the human body is astounding and just like diversity is necessary for the body, it is also necessary for family (and business). I absolutely celebrate that my wife is able to do things in which I am less proficient and do not enjoy. She can listen to our kids problems all day long. I solve problems. I can do what she does and she can do what I do but it’s not natural for either of us. Kind of like if the knees go, I can walk on my hands but it’s not going to be optimal. It is important to recognize and celebrate the differences in our families and not diminish them. I have three kids that were athletes and two that were not. Fantastic. One was a dancer and two were cheerleaders. Four are female and one is male. Two of them are artists. They all love to exercise. We have a mix of introverts and extroverts. They are all people of faith but each expresses it differently. The differences in us have made us stronger and more capable and honestly, more entertaining. We need each other.
Now don’t get to thinking we have not had our struggles. We have. Have we ever! We have dealt with bad days as well as bad months. We have walked through terrible mistakes and misunderstandings. We have all make regrettable choices. We have all said words we cannot take back and at times each part of the family has behaved in a dysfunctional way. But, we are still unified and appreciate each other and at the end of the day we have each other’s backs. We need each other! Why just last Friday my 6-5, 230-pound son came and helped me move some things that I just cannot move by myself. I’m sure glad I didn’t get rid of him when he was having problems! Who knew he would help me in my weakness? We need each other. I can’t help but share some teaching from Paul:
“The eye cannot say to the hand, I don’t need you! And the head
cannot say to the feet, I don’t need you.
Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.
There should be no division in the body………
if one part suffers, every part suffers with it;
if one part is honored, every part celebrates.”
Yes, Paul was talking about church but the concepts flow over to the family and the workplace. Great families recognize and celebrate differences. They stay fiercely united as they walk together throughout the journey. And, they run every relationship, every decision, every choice, every response through one filter: love. What would love do? WWJD?
One thing for sure, true love never runs dry. Paul said that too. I’m still upset at my knee but just like all the other parts – we will get past it.
Blessings
