One More Thing I'm Learning from My Knee Rehab Another Thing About the Body
Over the past several weeks, I’ve written about what I’m learning in my rehab after knee replacement surgery. The first two weeks I wrote about how my physical therapist’s initial session with me helped me get a good perspective on what to expect.
1. He told me that pain is not to be avoided but is actually part of the process of recovery.
2. He told me that I needed to take a long-term approach to the whole matter: if I try to measure my progress day by day, I’ll get discouraged (as many do). Instead, I should think about my progress week by week.
Last week I wrote about what I’ve learned about body ministry, how the whole body comes to the aid of a member that is weak or injured. My wife and I have bent all our efforts toward helping my knee heal. And our brothers and sisters at PPC have bent so much effort toward helping our family during this difficulty.
But there’s one more thing I’ve noticed.
A WIDER PERSPECTIVE FROM MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS
The entire rehab process is so slow that it is easy, as my therapist told me, to become discouraged. All along I’ve been encouraged by friends and family (especially my wife) as I’ve soldiered on in my in-home exercises. That kind of encouragement has been priceless.
But a couple of times in this process I have been encouraged by experts, people who are professionally familiar with the process, and I’ve needed to hear from them.
At my first follow-up appointment with my doctor, he took x-rays of my new knee. When he came into the exam room with the results, he was not just smiling, he was beaming. There was no clinical detachment there; he was genuinely and obviously pleased with what he saw.
All I could see, of course, is the scar and the swelling, not much to smile about. But he, an experienced surgeon, conveyed a joy and enthusiasm I needed to hear and see.
I had several weeks of in-home rehab. At my last appointment, the therapist took measurements to see how much progress I had made. He measured how much I could bend and flex my knee. So far as I was concerned, my knee was still stiff and sore. But the numbers don’t lie.
When my therapist saw the numbers, he too was smiling, telling me I was doing great!
I still have a long way to go, but here is a surgeon looking at my knee and my x-rays and telling me that everything looks great! And here is an experienced physical therapist telling me that that I am well on my way to wholeness in that ailing joint.
That is good to hear from anyone, but it was especially good to hear it from people who have expertise in this matter.
A WISER PERSPECTIVE FROM MATURE BELIEVERS
Faith is taking a wide and broad perspective about things. Because of a deepening confidence that God is at work, I don’t have to rush into panic at setbacks.
People who have walked with God a long time, those whose faith (confidence) in God has deepened over time, have an obligation to less mature believers to help them see the big picture.
Two examples come to mind:
1. The faithfulness of God is most easily recognized in retrospect.
In the middle of the fire, it can seem that God is inattentive. (Just think of the psalms of lamentation, where we hear the psalmist wail, “How long, O Lord?”)
If you’ve walked with God a long time, you’ve been able to see how God’s timing is, after all, meticulous. You’ve seen how His wisdom and love have provided for you in unlooked-for ways. Your faith, your confidence in God, has deepened and matured over time.
Your younger brothers and sisters don’t have that perspective, and they need to hear from you.
They need to hear from you what the psalmist so often affirmed: that those who put their hope in God will never be ashamed.
2. Failure isn’t catastrophic.
It’s one thing to trust God when life gets turned upside down. But it is often more difficult when we have brought the catastrophe down on our own heads by our own sin and rebellion.
My wife and I love to watch British crime dramas. Occasionally, in a tearful confession scene at the end of a story, we’ll hear the guilty suspects express astonishment and grief at what they have done. Once they acknowledge the horrific crime they have committed, they’ll say something like “I’m just not that kind of person!”
There is a profound gap between their actions and their self-perception, and they don’t know how to handle that disconnect.
Everyone who has walked with God knows that feeling.
“I can’t believe I could do such a thing!”
Or, “I can’t believe I’ve done it again!”
The temptation for young believers is to wonder if their faith is genuine. They know that Christ has come to deliver them from the power of sin, yet sin is still active in their lives.
How can I be a genuine child of God if I am still tempted and sometimes still rebel?
This is another moment when the young believer needs a hand on the shoulder, the loving presence of someone who knows that God’s grace is deeper than our sin, even the sin that astonishes and dismays.
Younger believers need to be taught how to preach the gospel to themselves when they fail. They need to be reminded that their identity doesn’t lie in their integrity and that their security doesn’t depend on their performance.
They need to hear from the voice of experience that the Father is eager for the prodigal son to return. They need to be reassured that with our Father there is grace aplenty.
I have needed to hear the words and see the smiles of the medical professionals. I don’t have the context to know how well I’m doing.
In the same way, younger brothers and sisters in Christ need the presence of mature believers to encourage them, to let them know that God will always prove Himself faithful, even when we fail.
Especially when we fail.
Persevere.
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor