“But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:54 NASB).
A couple of weeks ago I tried a new technique for drying my hair. The hairdresser had me scoot down in the chair and drape my hair over the back while I turned to the side. Then she used a diffuser, which is a blow dryer attachment reducing the harshness of the air flow. The diffuser is an important step if you are encouraging your hair to be curly… which I am, with moderate success. The next time I did my hair at home, I thought I would try her method. I decided to hang my head off the side of the bed to get the same effect. Within two minutes, my back protested loudly. I got up, finished my hair normally, and went about my day.
Later, just before bed, starting at the tippy top of my neck and progressing like a waterfall down to the base of my spine, my entire back turned into a field of pain. The slightest touch, even my clothing, was unbearable. I did not expect a delayed reaction from my hair experiment but a pinched nerve seemed to be the only explanation. How ridiculous it is that I hurt my back doing my hair?! Today, I would say my back is 95% better, and how do I know? Because now my knee hurts again. My mom has found, at least in her experience, that her body decides what pain is the most important to focus on and my body, similarly, ignored my knee until my back was feeling better. Truly our bodies are amazing.
God didn’t just create our bodies; He designed them! Each part of our physiology works within its own section as well as with the whole. Pinching a nerve affected not just my neck but my entire back which then affected my brain causing it to ignore my knee! I have always believed that God created humankind. How could something as complex as our bodies ever come into existence from random chance? We don’t even know how conscious thought works or why we need to sleep. I’m reading a book about a man whose wife died and his small child asked, “Why did God create people if they were just going to die?” How I longed to tell that little child about Jesus and about what happened when sin entered our world. God created us to live, not to die! Living in a world with sin, our bodies get injured but this was not the way God wanted it to be. While Jesus was on Earth, He healed many people. One day Jesus will return, and we will all experience our bodies as new bodies. The way the Lord meant for us to experience them in the first place, free of sin and death… and with perfect hair.