I See in Analogy

One of my friends recently posted on her blog that analogy is her communication of choice.  I had to chuckle when I read that, because sometimes I feel like my brain could make a spiritual analogy out of almost anything that happens.  Sometimes the analogies feel like a bit of a stretch, but often they sink deeply into my heart like serious truth.

As I’ve thought about some analogies that have been on my mind recently, I have seen again some reasons that the Savior might have taught in parables.  I often read something in the scriptures that touches my heart.  I usually write about those things, hoping that will help move that verse/thought into my mind and heart more thoroughly.  Sometimes that works, and sometimes not.  What’s been surprising to me is how much the analogies do stick in my mind.  Often they involve something I’ve seen or done regularly, and so every time I see or do that again, I am reminded.  I can see that in the same way the followers of Jesus, walking past a shepherd in the course of their day, might think again of the parable of the lost lamb.  Or while sweeping their house might think of the lost coin.  How brilliant to tie gospel teachings to common everyday things, people, and events, so that the teachings would be brought back to mind frequently.

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Here are my two recent analogies for your viewing pleasure:

When I arrived in Oregon the first time I had been driving across the country for almost 4 weeks.  During that time I had taken my thyroid medicine but not another vitamin, supplement, or medicine (other than the occasional ibuprofen for headaches) had crossed my lips.  This might not be a big deal for most people, but for me it was.  For the last two years I’ve had chronic pain in my sacro-iliac joint.  I had hoped physical therapy last fall would get rid of the problem, but no luck.  My pain is worse when I stand, sit, or lay for long periods of time.  I usually move around during the day enough to keep it from really bothering me, but sleeping at night is a different story.  If I take a significant amount of magnesium, calcium, and potassium (minerals that affect muscle contraction & relaxation) every night before bed and then stretch well, I can often avoid pain during the night.  I did some stretching at night on my trip, but I think it was a tender mercy that I didn’t have a lot of pain.  Because when I got to Oregon I didn’t sleep for over a week because my muscles felt like they were on fire..

At first I couldn’t figure out what was going on—all I knew in my sleepy brain was that I wasn’t sleeping.  After a few days I realized that it was the SI pain that was keeping me from sleeping, and finally I remembered (duh!) that I hadn’t taken any of my supplements for weeks.  But it still took a while for everything to work together and for me to do enough stretching and massaging to get my muscles to relax and stay that way all night.

One morning I woke up super early, probably 2 or 3AM.  I ached so badly around my SI joint, but I didn’t want to get out of bed and do anything about it.  For the rest of the night I drifted in and out of sleep, always aware of a line of pain across my hips.  I thought over and over again,

I know just where I need to massage to make that feel better.  I know just what I need.

At some point I gave up trying to sleep, rolled out of bed onto the floor where I have an impressive collection of massage tools, and grabbed the one I’d been dreaming of for hours.  I put it along that line of pain and pressed in hard, waiting for the immediate surge of relief I knew was coming.

Instead, I felt nothing.

I can’t even explain how startled I was.  I was sure I KNEW exactly what I needed to make that pain go away in that moment.  Except that what I thought I needed didn’t work at all, and I had to massage in an entirely different place to get the pain to start to go away. 

 

Sometime that day I started realizing what a perfect analogy that experience was for the situation I was in right then.  How many times in the last year have I fought against what was happening, saying in my heart “I know just what I need.”  I started to see that just like I actually didn’t know what was going to make my pain go away, I probably don’t know “just what I need” in this moment of my life either. 

In the weeks since that night & day, I have often thought of this.  Of my certainty, and of how wrong I was.  It has helped me to remember that even though I am sure I know what I need, I might be totally wrong.  And every time I’ve had pain in that particular place and thought longingly that I needed to massage it just so, the memory has come back.

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Analogy # 2—much shorter, and with pictures for you as well.

When I planted things in my hanging basket on the balcony, I planted several fuschias—flowers that are very popular here for this kind of thing.  I assumed that they would grow bigger and fill in and I would have hanging hot pink flowers all around my basket, with just a few purple petunias growing up in the center. 

When I got back home two weeks ago and went out to look at the balcony I noticed the hanging basket and I thought, “huh, no fuschias.  That’s not what I expected at all.”  I was disappointed.

As I was looking around at all of my other flowers, the thought came into my mind… just because the flowers flourishing in the hanging basket weren’t the flowers I had planned or expected didn’t mean they weren’t beautiful.  They were just a different beautiful.

And in that moment the spirit poked me and said,

Just like Oregon is a different beautiful.  If you will see it that way.

 

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So there you have it.  Now every time my SI bothers me or I look at my hanging plant, I get a swift reminder that I actually don’t know just what I need, or that Oregon is just a different kind of beautiful.  Over and over again those messages come into my mind for me to think about.  It seems a brilliant system to me.

 

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This is neither here nor there in the analogous scheme of things, but I’m going to include it anyway.  Russ & I were sitting in the apartment hot tub the other night chatting, and I saw, even without my glasses, a shooting star.  And I told him, I guess this means that God loves me in Oregon too…