Spiritual Prosthetics

When a person loses a limb, they can reclaim some of the old functionality that they enjoyed through artificial limbs or prosthetics. These prosthetics can vary in the quality of the craftsmanship and the range of motion. They can also take quite a bit of getting used to, and a person with a prosthetic may never realize the full extent of usability that they had with their original limbs. But thanks to prosthetics, they can in large part join in on most of the activities that they used to participate in. There might need to be some adjustments, and they might have to use those artificial limbs with a little more care and thought than they would have with their natural limbs, but these prosthetics can make a big difference. There are times where we may suffer spiritual losses that are the equivalent of losing a limb. We messed up so badly, or someone wronged us so badly, there is so much spiritual damage and trauma, that we have lost our spiritual arm or leg. And like a person missing an arm or a leg, certain activities may at first seem impossible for us to join in on. We may have to learn to rely on spiritual prosthetics. These may at first feel uncomfortable or unnatural. We may have to do things in a way that is different from what “normal” people seem to be doing. We may worry that even as we attempt to follow the Savior, we clunk along so ungracefully in our spiritual prosthetics that it hardly seems worth the effort given all of the humiliation and frustration that we are feeling. But over time, as we continue to trust in the Lord, we will grow more used to our Spiritual prosthetics. Our efforts to overcome our short tempers, or our inability to trust, or our fear of being in any way open or vulnerable, will gradually become more fluid and natural. There will come a day, and it might take years or decades, it might take longer even than the time we have left in our mortal journey, but every Spiritual wound will be healed, every limb replaced with an even better one. In the meantime, if we have to stump along with the spiritual equivalent of a peg leg, and feel silly because we are not as effortless in our worship as others, we are not alone. We are not the only ones who have had to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand to make sure that we are saved still in the kingdom of Heaven. God knows the path that we must walk intimately for He walked it Himself, and He is there to support us when we are struggling to get used to our Spiritual prosthetics.