It Is My Back That Feels It

It is not the washing.

You could do the washing for a year. It is dull and it takes an hour and there is nothing in it that a person cannot manage.

It is the lifting. A basket of wet clothes weighs about three times what a basket of dry ones weighs, and it comes up off the floor of a bathroom at an angle that nobody would choose, and that has happened perhaps ninety times in the last three weeks.

And somewhere in the second week your back started saying something about it, and it has not stopped, and it is now the first thing you are aware of in the morning.

And nobody in this house knows.

That is the part I want to deal with, because it is doing more damage than the lifting.

You have said nothing, and the reason is a set of small reasonable things: it is not that bad, it will settle down, everybody is stretched, there is no point adding a complaint to a house that already has enough in it.

And under those, doing the real work, is something older, which is that men in your family did not mention this kind of thing.

You are a man whose body has been carrying this and not a man who is complaining, and a back that hurts after three weeks of lifting has never once been weakness showing up.

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds

There is a verse about God and injuries, and the second verb in it is the practical one.

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3, King James Version)

Bindeth up their wounds. Binding up is not the same as healing. Binding up is what somebody does to an injury that is still an injury, to support it while it mends, so the person can keep going in the meantime.

That is a very physical, very ordinary image, and it assumes the wound is still there while the binding happens.

You are being supported inside an injury rather than after it, and a back that still hurts has never once been a back God was waiting to see improve before He got involved. Psalm 147:3 puts the binding up alongside the wound rather than after it, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who wakes up aware of his own back.

And notice that both verbs are His.

He healeth. He bindeth up. The person with the wound is not doing either of these things. They are not described as applying anything to themselves or as managing it well. They are the one being attended to.

You are the one being attended to and not the one expected to manage it, and a man with an injury has never once been asked by that verse to look after it himself. The written word makes God the actor in both halves of the sentence, and the Spirit of God is the one doing the binding while a man goes on with his week.

And there is one more thing in the verse, and it is the reason this verse rather than another.

He healeth the broken in heart. The heart comes first in that sentence and the wounds come second, and both are in the same breath. The verse does not separate the inner thing from the physical thing, and it does not rank them.

You are being dealt with whole and not in parts, and a hurting back and a worn down man have never once been two separate cases in that verse. Psalm 147:3 puts the heart and the wounds in one sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who attends to both at once in a house that has been stretched for three weeks.

Saying it is part of the job

Something practical, and it is a fact about how injuries actually get worse.

An unmentioned injury gets compensated for. The body shifts, quietly, to protect the sore part, and the shifting puts load somewhere that was not built for it, and in about a month there are two problems instead of one.

That is not a metaphor. That is what happens in a back, and it happens faster when nobody knows to take the heavy end.

You are protecting something in a way that is producing a second injury, and a body working around a sore place has never once been a body that was managing it. The written word has God binding up a wound rather than leaving a man to work around it, and the Spirit of God is the one who moves a man to say a thing out loud before the second problem starts.

Now the second practical thing, and it is the one that requires something.

Say it. Tonight. Out loud, to one person, in a plain sentence with no qualifier on it.

My back is hurting. It has been since the second week. It is the lifting.

Not: my back is a bit funny. Not: it is nothing, but. Not said while walking out of the room, which is how this kind of sentence usually gets said by men who do not want it discussed.

You are able to say one plain sentence about your own body tonight, and a man reporting an injury has never once been a man asking to be looked after. Psalm 147:3 has God binding up wounds that were named rather than hidden, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the room when a sentence gets said without a qualifier.

And then let somebody carry the basket. Not every basket. Tonight's basket.

That is the whole of the second half, and it is harder than the sentence, and it is the part that actually changes what happens to your back over the next three weeks.