Back Surgery Metaphors of the Christian Life

My journey toward reconstructive back surgery began years before 2016. Cortisone shots in my lower back reduced the pain and inflammation, but they were temporary measures, never fixing the big picture. After air travel alone in January and again in February, after slinging computer bags into the overhead bins and pulling bags from the baggage carousel, it was clear that something was wrong.

http://www.teachpe.com/anatomy/the_spine.php

As a fibromyalgia sufferer, it’s sometimes hard to know if pain is more than just a spike in ‘regular’ pain.  For a while I dismissed the pain in my hips, lower back, buttocks. My right quad would go numb when standing for too long. Tingles would cascade down my legs. When I woke on March 9 with a massive muscle spasm from my lower back to behind my knee, my husband said, “Now will you go to the doctor?”

So I did, finally. After yet another cortisone shot in my left lower back and an x-ray showing a ‘bone spur’ on the L4 vertebra in the lumbar region, the physician’s assistant requested an MRI from the insurance company. If you follow me on Blasting News, you’ve read that story.

How is all of this a metaphor for the Christian Life?

First, you can’t go about changing a problem until you realize you have a problem. As non-Christians, we all must come to the conclusion that something is wrong in our lives. All the Tylenol Extra Strength doses would never fix the cause of my pain. Once I knew that the pain had a specific cause, I knew I had to fix it. Sin in our lives, yes even Christians sin, can never be repaired without the Holy Physician’s help. Only He can remove our sin as far as the east is from the west. Until He excises my sin problem, my constant missteps without Him, I continue to stumble and fail to live a life focused on Him instead of dwelling on myself.

Out of the Dust: Story of an Unlikely Missionary

Avis Goodhart

Out of the Dust: Story of an Unlikely Missionary is a testimony to the way God uses broken things and impossible circumstances to show His power in our world. Avis Goodhart, the unlikely missionary of the title, started and maintained a missionary presence in Peru through her Go Ye Ministries. With my dear friend Marti Pieper, Out of the Dust tells Avis’s story about how she came to serve God through missions.

Marti Pieper

At the end of each chapter is the testimony of someone who went to Peru and shared the ministry with Avis. Some came for a week’s mission trip. Some came and stayed. Some led women’s Bible study and craft classes, empowering women who felt alone and discarded like the trash in the landfill on which their cardboard homes sit. Some adopted orphans from the orphanage. Some taught at the Go Ye Ministries School. Avis’s life may not have seemed extraordinary, especially her childhood, but her life and God’s use of her reinforces the idea that God’s power is even more evident when His servants are ones who has little to no power, education, wealth, or status.

 

Missionary prayer groups and women’s groups will find this book about the work Goodhart began in Peru a good study book. Bible study groups may find this book challenging to put feet to their knowledge of the Bible. Churches may find Out of the Dust an impetus to go forth from the comfort of the pew to those who need their help and compassion.

Read this book. Available in paperback & Kindle at Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Out-Dust-Story-Unlikely-Missionary-ebook/dp/B00NB51F5K/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425393492&sr=1-3&keywords=out+of+the+dust

Watch the YouTube videos from their experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDXzVH-zXik

and interviews on 100 Huntley Street https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ydA3wudgQY & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LnIW-Du6Ec .

Pray and act on what God is calling you to do out of the dust of your ordinary life. God will make your service to Him extraordinary, as He has done with Avis Goodhart and her multitude of helpers.

The publisher has provided a review copy in exchange for my review.