Throwback Thursday: Pain in heels while walking.

September 14, 2017
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Note: This post first appeared on my old blog, Far Above Rubies, on March 9, 2012. ~Alisha

 
If you clicked on this post expecting a piece on platforms, sorry, not getting that. But stick around anyway, okay?
 
On Wednesday, as I rushed to grab a clean diaper for Z, I banged my heel against the side of our platform bed. I yelled out a rather loud, “Oww”, which is much better than the four letter word I could’ve hollered.
 
I felt irritated. I leaned against Z’s crib with my right arm and lifted the throbbing left heel to observe the damage. It was quickly turning red. “Augh…”. 
 
I put my foot back down and got the diaper. Even as I changed Z and continued on with my day, the thought of my banged up foot kept coming back to me. It had long stopped hurting, but the thought of the pain hung in my head all day.
 
 

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Psalm 91:11-12

 
“He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness. “It is not by strength that one prevails;” I Samuel 2:9
 
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my feet since I was a little girl. No, closer to a dislike-hate relationship. I was extremely pigeon-toed and wore corrective shoes through middle school. My feet were (and are) big for my short stature. Topping that off, I developed bunions, which I had surgically corrected in college. Oh, and did I mention I have no arches?
 
 
The latest addition to my “Feet= Bad” list is the scar from my sural nerve biopsy from April 2010. When I press against it hard, I still get a jolt of light, electric pain. Any type of injury to this area can be extremely painful since it is a hotbed of nerves. 
 
This wasn’t the area I hurt when my foot collided with the side of our Ikea hand-me-down. Or I would’ve yelled out a cuss.
 
But it might be the area where Jesus was nailed through his feet to the cross. I found this out while watching a National Geographic special last night. It’s a few years old, but very fascinating. It features the bones of a man named Jehohanan. Researchers found the man’s heel bone had a nail through it.
 

This could possibly change the way Christ is portrayed on the cross. But what really struck me, to the point of actually wincing was the image of a large nail pounded through the heel. If a small cut and removal of a piece of nerve can cause pain to be felt years after the procedure, my mind cannot fathom the pain of crucifixion. That verse from Psalms 91 is repeated in Matthew 4:6 by Satan in an attempt to tempt Christ. Jesus had gone out to the desert for forty days and forty nights. This being Lent, this story is told quite often. Jesus, of course, could have called on angels to come lift him away. But having been led by the Holy Spirit (4:1), he stayed the path and overcame temptation. But staying that path- the path that led to the Via Dolorosa– was truly one of obedience and sacrifice. As I walk the narrow, sometimes weighed down by my cross, I remind myself Christ is here with me, shouldering most of the burden. I also take comfort that eventually, Christ did take flight, not in escape, but glory. For it isn’t through my lowly strength that I’ll persevere, but through Christ, who strengthens me.

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