Numbness

 Last weekend was halloween. And as part of my costume I made the poor decision to wear 3 inch black heels. I spent roughly 6 hours that night standing and walking around in these heels, and needless to say, it was painful. The next morning I woke up and my toes were completely numb. I raised the concern to my friend Rachel who is a nurse, and she said that I probably had some nerve damage in my toes from wearing those shoes all night. This freaked me out a little bit. She said that I should eventually re-gain the feeling in my toes and that the tingling should go away. Well, it's been a week now and it's still there.

 This morning at Jacobs Well I listened to a sermon about Numbness. How we so often are numb to what is going on around us and even right in front of us. How we are seemingly unaware of the hurt and pain that people are going through. That we tend to impose our feelings on others and do not necessarily pay attention to the actual needs of others, or what they may have to offer us.

 The example given was a passage from James. It talked about how we immediately accept and welcome those who are nicely dressed, clean, maybe wealthy, and yet are so quick to dismiss and ignore the poor, and dirty. But is it not the poor who have faith and the gifts of the kingdom to offer? We are so quick to assume that the poor have nothing of value, simply because they may not have money, but maybe they have wisdom, life experience, faith, compassion, all of these things that Christ showed and calls us to share with others. They have love. We need to show love towards those who we have maybe subconsciously shut out, tuned out, and pushed out of our lives.

 With this thought fresh in my mind, I have made it a new goal of mine to let God un-numb my soul to those people who may not have money, a place to live, or food to eat. To let the tingling in my toes be a constant physical reminder to look at EVERYONE through the loving eyes of Christ, with out prejudice, and with out pre-conceived notions about who they are, where they came from, and why they're in the situation they're in.  And hopefully, as the numbness in my toes begins to fade, the numbness in my soul will follow suit.