After the desserts had been cleared, I was chatting with a relative on Thanksgiving. Her daughter came by and sweetly asked for a massage on her upper back. The request was based on past experience. Her mother is a skilled and intuitive masseuse. We continued to talk as she pressed her fingers deeply into the crevices of pain, easing the blood in ways I don't understand. 

 

I have long suspected that aching backs are a trick. It is the one area of our exceedingly well designed bodies that we cannot reach. I think if God wanted us to be able to relieve the stress in our own vertebrae He could have created shoulder and elbow joints to that effect. But He chose a different tack. 

Let me assure you that the young woman in need of well placed spinal pressure is not a wimp. On the contrary, she spent the last year living in a hole in the ground. It was a nice hole, one she helped dig, fashioned with logs and sod, which became quite habitable with the addition of a wood stove. She can light a fire using two sticks in thirty seconds, tie a bowline, gather edibles in the woods and navigate by the stars. But when it came to untying the knots in her back, she needed help. 

 

There is a vulnerability that opens up when we ask for assistance. Self sufficiency steps aside, and humility bows in. This creates a pathway for Gratitude, something stoic independence never could.

 

Marriage is a lifelong commitment to exchange help. John and I fill each other's gaps, and alternately expose our neediness. Both directions are vital, like the two avenues of the circulatory system. 

 

One current would not suffice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Jenny Stein

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