Snake Bite

Today's passage:  John 13/Genesis 3
     "I speak not of you all:  I know whom I have chosen:  but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me."
     For a couple of years now, I have been struggling with pain in my heel.  It started slowly, sometime after I had my third child.  When I would get out of bed in the morning, it would be difficult to put any weight on it. The pain some days was almost unbearable.  I tried wrapping it, massaging it, medicating it, nothing seemed to work. Obviously the first question would be, "Why didn't you go to the doctor about it?" Many moms will understand this, sometimes we are too busy to take care of ourselves the way we ought to.  Mommies tend to put off what they need to do for themselves to take care of their families.  My husband had taken on sidejobs in addition to his regular job, and his health issues (which seemed far more serious at the time) were the only ones we could schedule appointments for on his actual days off.  When I finally was able to get to the doctor, she guessed that I have plantar fasciitis (an inflammation of the heel tissue) with a possible bone spur.  She recommended avoiding backless shoes (goodbye my beloved sandals) and stretching the heel muscles with some physical therapy exercises.  I followed her recommendations.  I started doing the stretches, but my youngest was only a few months old at the time and still in the unpredictable sleep pattern stage.  It seemed no matter how early I would get up to do these, he would wake up in the middle of my stretching.  It was hard to get into a routine, and I got out of the routine for so long, that I forget to even do them now.  I need to put a message on my alarm in the morning that says, "Stretch!"  You would think that hobbling around the house on one foot for the first part of the morning would be reminder enough, but I'm so focused on what I need to get done, it doesn't even occur to me.  I've lived with the pain for so long, it is just second nature.
     I am thinking back to the verse in Genesis, when God is rebuking the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."  The heel that would be lifted up against Christ was an infected heel.  It was a heel filled with Satan's venom.  It would do a lot of damage in the coming days.  It was the heel of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. 
     We have been subjected to Satan's devices for so long, we are practically immune to them.  We notice a little bite at first, maybe we try to do something about it, but eventually we get used to it.  The pain continues.  We limp from place to place, hardly noticing that our whole foot is infected and the infection is spreading. Eventually, the infection weakens our heart.  We haven't taken any medication to counteract its effects, we've become accustomed to parts of our body not functioning properly.  It is not surprising when we make ungodly decisions because we haven't had proper therapy.  We haven't read our Bible, we haven't prayed, we haven't attended church, we haven't guarded our eyes and our minds. Satan's poisonous bite, without proper medical attention will destroy us.  If I don't take the time to tend to it, I will do something I will regret.  I wonder if this is what happened to Judas.  He had no idea that Satan had possessed him because it started in his heel, the farthest part from his heart, and worked its way up until it was too late.  There is a remedy for a snake bite.  Destroy the snake.  Christ did that when He died on the cross for me.  When I accepted Christ, I have the power to bash the serpent in the head, and prevent him from injecting his poison.  He will scurry away and find another victim.  In God's time, Satan will not be able to infect anyone else.  But how many will fall prey before his time is up?
     The obvious solution to my heal mending would be to follow the doctor's orders.  I should remind myself every morning to do those exercises before my heel becomes an even worse problem.  If I have become accustomed to the pain, I really ought to do something about that.