Seasons... and ligaments

The seasons are changing and summer seems to be drawing to a close here in the south of Spain. The leaves on the trees are beginning to change colour and be carried off by the winds; we're now able to sleep under the sheets and not on top of them like we did in the intense heat of August; there are fewer people congregating at the ice cream parlours in the late evening hours; people are enjoying their last few dips of the year in their swimming pools; children and teenagers are back at school again, and we've moved our Sunday church service from 7 pm to its winter slot of 6 pm. Later this week, I'll notice the change of weather even more, as I'll be flying to Scotland for several days of meetings with YWAM's Western Europe leadership team (WELT.) Interestingly, the week of meetings is being held at Stanely House in Paisley - the property where I led the Child and Youth Ministry training course (PCYM) for several years in the 1990s.

I was reading in my Bible this morning that the church is compared to a human body, with Jesus as the head. Colossians 2: 19 says that God will make the whole body grow strong when it keeps in touch with its Head and is strongly supported and held together by its ligaments. I've been thinking about what "ligaments" could represent in the life of a church or group of Christian believers. What are the things that link and join us together in this strong way? Our worship, our shared belief in God's Word, our partnership in extending His kingdom where He has placed us, our love and commitment towards each other...?

I've had plenty of opportunity to reflect on the importance of ligaments this summer, and to experience first hand the effects of torn or weak ligaments. In August I tore a ligament in my left thumb and had to have my hand in a splint for five or six weeks. Have you any idea just how many things are difficult to do when you have only one thumb?! Then, just as the thumb was back to normal, I twisted my ankle on an uneven stair. After hobbling around on it for three weeks and not seeing much change in the level of pain, I began to fear that maybe I'd been walking around on a fracture, and decided I'd better have it checked. As the doctor looked at my x-rays, he told me that the pain wasn't from the hairline fracture, but was from the ligament/tendon which had "calcifications" and wasn't healing as quickly as it should. So now, after having my hand immobilised last month, I'm suitably embarrassed to end up with my foot immobilised this month.

If you look up the word "ligament" in a dictionary, you'll find its primary meaning of a band of fibrous tissue that connects bones or supports organs... but you'll also find a secondary meaning of "any connection or unifying bond." Let's look after our relationships in the Body of Christ, so that our unifying bonds do their job of holding the body together and testifying to the love of God.