The Physical Manifestation

My neck is a load bearing neck...

When stress hits I can barely turn my head to the side, I end up carrying all of my tension in my neck, the physical manifestation of the struggles I face internally made complete in the winces I give every time it moves one way or the other. It’s not the most pleasant of feelings in the world, I can say that much.

Over time the one thing I have learned is that we all have different places where we carry our stress. Some people are like me, they carry it in their neck, while others carry it in their back. There are those who get sick, their immune system going down. Maybe someone, a chiropractor or a doctor, could explain it to me, but until then, it remains a bit of a mystery to me, like most of the things about the mind.

I guess if mind is truly over matter, I shouldn’t be truly shocked; after all, if we can use it to try and overcome pain, I am sure it can work the other way around to cause us pain. I just don’t exactly know why that is...

Any which way though, for the past few days I was putting heating packs on my neck, trying to lie just the right way, struggling not to move my head too fast or even nod, so that I could minimize the pain shooting through it, waiting for the stress to go away, knowing that within a day then my neck will feel normal again.

Still, it finally gives me insight into why God tells us to take our troubles and to lay them at His feet.

Christ tells us, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) Why though?

Well it’s because God, He created us by His hand (Genesis 1:27) and so He knows how we are. He knows that, even though there are no temptations except that which are common to mankind. (1 Corinthians 10:13) Yet He also knows that this world is too much for us to be able to handle at times. We have a tendency to worry, to struggle, to find ourselves stressed out. As hard as we may try to be mellow or to be easy going, there is no avoiding it at times. It becomes overbearing and the mental stress turns into physical pain.

Yet there is a promise from God, “For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” (Jeremiah 31:25) No matter what the struggle, no matter what the stress, God is going to be there for us, to make our lives just a little bit easier as He uplifts us and gives us the strength to overcome. If we just cast our concerns to Him, we know that He will take them from us and lead us down a path that will help us to resolve our concerns and make us whole again. It is the promise that we are given over and over again. After all, “For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.” (Psalm 107:9)

We feel the physical manifestations of our stress and our struggles because we don’t do the right thing about them. We worry, we let them overtake us. But when we turn to God and we trust in the words of Christ, letting the Spirit lead us, we know that there will be no stress that will be able to overtake us. Then shall we know the strength of the Lord in our lives for the goodness that He has shown upon us according to His mercy.

So the question is, do we want to keep worrying ourselves to death? Do we want to keep our struggles to ourselves even when they bring us a pain of the body and the mind, the spirit or the soul? Or would we rather rest them all with our ever present help, knowing He will always guide us and protect us?