What If You Shared A Body With Your Sibling?

I watched a show on The Learning Channel about two sisters who happen to be conjoined twins. The show, Joined for Life: Abby and Brittany Turn 16, was a special program that showed us how two twin sisters share not only their body but their lives with each other.

The program showed these two life-loving teenagers doing things that most sisters do. It showed them going to school, teasing with friends, playing softball, driving a car (they just got their licenses), riding their bike, and many other things. They understandably want their privacy, but they agreed to do this program as an update of how they were doing and to show the world that even though this is very unusual, they lead a relatively normal life.

According to Abby and Brittany's article in Wikipedia, internally, most of their shared organs are below their waist line. However, they have 2 hearts, 2 spinal cords, 3.5 lungs, 2 stomachs, and 3 kidneys. This is likely the reason that they are able to function so well physiologically.

Abby and Brittany have control over their respective halves of their limbs (arm and leg) and each cannot feel the opposite half of their body. So everything they do, they must cooperate together in order to complete tasks. It's comparative to you controlling only your left arm and leg, and your sibling controlling only your right arm and leg.

This sounds pretty challenging. Especially when learning how to drive a car: one controls the gas, break, shifter and radio, one controls the blinker and lights, and they both steer. Wow, now that's teamwork! It took them some practice, but they figured it out.
Even though I am amazingly fascinated with the ability that conjoined twins can function biologically, I am more fascinated with how they cooperate. Can you imagine sharing a body with your sibling? How many times did you fight or disagree with your brother or sister?

Sometimes I amaze myself at how uncooperative I am. I mean, come on... I get the ability to control my own body! I don't have to share it with my sibling, so that means that I should have an advantage in being able to share my space, my time, my attention, etc. But no, I often think about how my body belongs to me and how I can get others to do what I want them to.

How much more cooperative would I be if I always remembered that my body doesn't belong to me. It belongs to God. God has given me my body and especially since the Holy Spirit dwells within my body, I'm sharing it with Him! How much more cooperative would I be with my fiancee, my family, my friends, my co-workers, and/or even with complete strangers when I have the mindset that I am sharing my body with Jesus?

These two girls are a great example of cooperation in a selfish world that doesn't know how.

Photos from here, here, and here.