April is here and the weather is starting to heat up! The flowers are beginning to bloom and the trees are starting to bud. Let spring have its way with our hearts as it brings hope that the resurrection still brings life to all who will call out to him. I am so looking forward to celebrating Jesus Christ’s victory over death this Sunday and also pausing this Friday night at 6 p.m. to remember the price he paid for our sins.
Speaking of paying a price, that is what exactly I have been doing twice a week at physical therapy. I hurt my shoulder trying to do exercises that only super heroes can do. The physical therapist told me it looks like I have what laymen people call a “frozen shoulder.” And like the movie Frozen I would love to let this injury go! After the doctor ordered an ex-ray and everything came back fine, I was instructed to start physical therapy. I do believe after my first session that to become a physical therapist you have to like seeing people make that face. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s that face people make when they feel pain. They say no pain no gain, well I would love to meet the person who made that saying up and give him a lot of gain. With the first exercise my shoulder began to ache in pain and while I still had that look of pain on my face, the therapist began to give me another exercise that would bring a whole new experience of pain to my shoulder. As I struggled with the second exercise, it hit me the world has therapy for our bodies. There were other people who were there doing different procedures focusing on different parts of their bodies that like my shoulder had been damaged.
Well, we the church have “heart therapy.” Every Sunday God provides a place to come where we can receive therapy for our hearts. Many of us suffer from a broken heart and through the week we have received damage to our spirits. It is at the church that instructions from his word gives us the exercises we need to repair our broken hearts. We grimace when we hear that we should pray for our enemies and to forgive those that have hurt us, but like physical therapy when we do what the therapist tells us to do, healing begins. I have been going to physical therapy for three weeks and my shoulder is getting better. I have been going to heart therapy every Sunday and it too is working. As I left that morning from physical therapy, a little sorer, I also knew I left a little better as well. So may it be every Sunday when we leave, may we be less broken and more like our heart therapist Jesus. Looking forward to Sunday therapy, Pastor Rick.