A couple of days ago, I was walking into the hospital just as a helicopter was arriving with an injured soldier. When they take the injured off the helicopter they place them on a rolling stretcher. The man was being rolled through Hero’s Highway as he passed by me. He was wrapped in a Mylar blanket which helps keep the injured warm. There was a splint around his lower leg which was wrapped in an ace bandage and just his toes and top part of his foot was visible. His foot was blue due to a tourniquet that had been placed to stop the bleeding from a wound further up his leg. Every second or so, blood would drop from the splint and left a trail of blood splattered on the ground every 6 feet as the stretcher rolled into the ER where the orthopedic surgeons were waiting. He would then be prepped for surgery and taken to the OR and the damaged leg repaired. From the foot’s standpoint, it only knew it was in pain and was not getting enough of what it needed or wanted. The foot, if it could think independently would probably be shouting, “How about some blood down here?” “Don’t you see my foot is blue?” “I am in pain. I am throbbing. I feel my skin is about to burst. Can I get some relief?” If the foot were given immediate relief and the tourniquet was released, the foot would be happy for a short while. Then as the body continued to lose blood, it would become cold and blue once more and then would die as would the rest of the body to which it is attached. As I watched this soldier roll past me I thought, “There is a lesson in what I am seeing.” It was 1am the other morning when I realized the lesson from the “the blue foot”.

The blue foot couldn’t see the bleeding from its vantage point. It didn’t know that the body was at risk of bleeding to death. It didn’t realize that the tourniquet that was causing all of its complaints was actually saving the foot in the long run. The foot did not have the perspective that the medic did when the tourniquet was placed. The medic didn’t ask the permission of the foot, just did what was best for the body, knowing that saving the body was the only chance to save the leg and the foot.

The collective church is referred to as the “body of Christ”. As I thought about the foot being indignant as to how it was being treated and neglected, my mind went immediately to my prayers as a “foot”. There have been times when I have cried out in pain, whether physical, spiritual or emotional, and have wondered, why my requests were being neglected. As I look back, when I have cried out because of how unfairly I felt I was being treated, was my life really being saved, was there a tourniquet on another part of the “body of Christ” that caused me pain but would ultimately make me better? The blue foot has reminded me of a very important lesson that I seem to need to learn over and over again. God sometimes puts a tourniquet on a leg. He knows the injury and sees the bleeding that I don’t see as the foot. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways. This is the LORD’s declaration.” Isaiah 55:8 “There is a way that seems right to a man [or foot], but in the end it is the way of death. Proverbs 16:25.

When you are a foot and the Medic is putting a tourniquet on the leg, listen to the Medic and you will hear “Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10

Solis Deo Gloria
More thoughts to come