Don’t Let Your Shoulders Hold You Back

Many times, as we get older, we begin to feel our bones and muscles ache sometimes for no reason except for the fact that our body is getting older. Or it may not be that we are old at all, but we may have done something to strain our bodies and we are feeling that pain the next day. However, no matter what we begin to feel, no matter what pains we have or what issues we are dealing with in our health, we still have something to be grateful for.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

Over the past year, my body has gone through some changes, I have had more aches and pains and even surgery than I have had all my life. One day as I walked into work, I thought about how great it was that I still had all my parts even though they were aching. I thought about how the pain reminded me that my parts were still there and working. I smiled knowing God was telling me to get over the pain and continue on.

Now I have a routine once I arrive at work as I am walking down the stairs to the building. I thank God as I take every step for each part of my body beginning with my sore feet, my aching ankles moving my way up to the top of my head naming every part. One day, as I got to my back and shoulders, I thought about how our shoulders (depending on how we hold them) control the way we hold our back. Then I begin to think about how sometimes our head and shoulders do hold us back.

More often than not, we let our minds control our thoughts, just as our shoulders control our back. We think about the things we should have done. We focus on what we are lacking. We look at what we don’t have. Rather than thinking negatively, we need to go over in our minds what we have said and done that we are grateful for just as we should with our bodies.

Sometimes we allow things to build up on our shoulders and we hold grudges or we feel the weight of worry or sadness which can keep us from doing God’s will. Sometimes we get a chip on our shoulders when someone says something that hurts or offends us. The burden we allow to put on our shoulders could keep up back from doing what God wants us to do. We need to take those things off our shoulders and give them to God.

Our shoulders and our heads can lead us to a brighter day. As we lift back our shoulders and stand or sit tall, we can begin to feel better about our bodies and be grateful for what bodies God has given us. As we hold our head high, we can be thankful we have the skills and abilities God put in our heads. We can be grateful for the mind God has given us and ask Him to help us fill it with His word so we can better use our bodies and minds to do His will.

No matter how our day was yesterday, no matter what problems we had or what we didn’t get to do or who we had ill feelings about, we do have something to be thankful for. We have some things that went right. We had some accomplishments. God did allow us to make it through another day. We can always find something we could have done better, but today let’s think about what we did well.

When we are thankful and we focus on our blessings and what God can do in our lives, we begin to forget our bodies are hurting, we begin to forget about what someone has done or said to us, we begin to put aside all the hurt from others and all the negative thoughts we have had. Focusing on what God has done for us will help us feel better about ourselves so we can do God’s will and so we can make a difference.