Out of Alignment

(too bad I can't sleep like this guy, eh?)

About 6 1/2 years ago we got a new bed. Well, new to us anyway. It was a family hand-me-down, so don't anyone get all skeeved and worried about bed-bugs, y'all.

I was thrilled. It was the most amazingly comfy bed I'd slept on EVER. Or at least, that's what my pregnant body told me. And it really was comfy. But as the years flew by, the bed lost a little of that comfy factor.

Apparently mattresses get all old and stuff. Colby has been telling me for quite a while that we need to replace them. It's been pretty low on my priority list. Seriously, why fix something that's not BROKEN.

Fast forward to about 6 weeks ago. I had been having pain in my right hip for a few weeks. It got so bad that I'd wake up in the night crying. Colby said it was because of the bed. I thought, Nah. Can't be.

Then I began to have pain in my left knee whenever I walked very far or, heaven forbid, went to the gym. As in, I needed a knee brace and a lot of ibuprofen the next day.

And THEN the jaw pain started. The left side of my jaw wouldn't close right and I had a really hard time chewing anything!

Left jaw, right hip, left knee. Hmm.

I thought someone had pushed fast forward on the aging button.

(Twerty - aka Nerd Bird)

Then one night the pain in my hip was overwhelming and my tossing and turning and crying did it for my husband. He was convinced the bed was to blame, so in the dark he helped me move and grabbed all the blankets and flung them over us so that we were sideways on the bed.

The next few nights brought such relief. I slept. Without tears. I ate, without clicking. I walked, without a knee brace. By Thanksgiving I was completely back to myself.

Seriously.

I couldn't believe it. Colby was totally right about the bed. A small change of direction made all the difference in the world.

It got me to thinking about foundations. I mean, we're a little out of touch with the idea of foundations these days, don't you think? When we read in the Bible about the "wise man" building his house upon the rock, it's a thought process we don't spend much time on. Most of us don't build the houses we live in from the ground up. If we do, we hire someone else to think about how deep to dig the foundation, what codes need to be followed, and which company to use to dig the holes. We don't do it. Not with our own two hands. Not any more.

But what if we build our sleep schedule on a really old mattress? It's amazing how just a tiny bit of misalignment of our "foundation" - our spine - can cause such drastic reactions in other places of our body! My back was out of alignment, and by turns, so was the rest of my body.

So with our spiritual walk. If we are out of alignment in our spiritual "foundation" - our personal, heart-to-heart relationship with Jesus - we're going to be out of alignment a little bit everywhere else in life, too.

The pain in my knee felt just like it did when I'd twisted my knee while skiing. The pain in my jaw just seemed to have no connection to my spine whatsoever. And yet... they both were connected.

Next time I'm feeling a little "out of alignment" somewhere in my heart, I think I'll focus a little less on fixing what FEELS out of place and focus a little more on what's at the core - building my foundation on the Rock.