Our Body?

Body shame and insecurity is so real! So today I’ll share with you a piece of how wholeness is happening here for me!  It is going to be a different story for your body as you are invited by God to notice Him there and that’s okay. Here’s some thoughts that have been stirring in me as God invades and transforms every part of who I am...

Our Body? 

My writer friend the apostle Paul said that he always carried the death of Christ in his body so  that the life of Christ could be revealed. To carry in your physical body the fullness of the Gospel means accepting the fact that physical pain, sickness and suffering and limits and the heavy weight are  sometimes part of being a “little Christ” and all I can do sometimes is  “suffer with”—to sit, pray and shed tears because of “long night” you and I experience and ask “How long, Lord?” There is a closeness to the heart of God here in the pain as much as in the resurrection power. I also am recognizing that it’s ok to love and care for this body because of this frailty and beauty! You are lovely on the Way to the Healing, my friend! There’s grace here!

Today though I am thinking of those with raw throats, sore hips, scans and upcoming tests and surgeries. I am burdened for those with confined muscles and dancing feet that can’t move, the ones with back pain,  with the immune diseases  and brain imbalances  that are often silent and unnoticed and  even diabetes. This is because the full Gospel of a Person calls us also to resurrection and life. It calls us to asking,—touching heaven and pleading for healing in our body from our God who heals and loves us and be at peace with Him holding and loving us in  our body today by death or resurrection.

This is authority that comes from knowing the God who suffers and the God who gives life...and somehow for long years I have been chosen to carry both of these realities in my body ....you may not get it and wonder as do I, but this is where my faith actually becomes real. This is the mystery of a baby girl given life miraclously and also the communion of sharing in His suffering through my crippled body.  Death came, life won and the  scars remain to tell the story of this mystery and real hope. The space is a bit ambiguous  here and there’s a lot of things I just don’t know and I’m leaning in and will be ok (in the middle of working through all the feels) with my God who is perfect in all of His ways as I experience Him here.  Now though we see things darkly and incompletely for a time. Some days it is so clear and other days it is still so much in process.  It is mostly as simple on a day as breathing. In and out and in and out...and in and out! A Receiving of Love and a Giving of love...now—fully, deeply, truly!

Because the Gospel also means that on that Day (even when the days are long and our bodies groan) my King will come and make all things new. No more death,  disability disease and suffering. No more tears or pain...and we will see things clearer than ever before!!  Even when my sufferer’s song in this day is full of the old hymn line of ...”while on others Thou art calling DO NOT PASS ME BY..” that I know Now as did the man at the pool or even the woman who touched His robe that I am SOMEBODY ...that you are SOMEBODIES that are known, loved and noticed as we wait. We are not just one in a crowd to Him in our body, mind and soul! People may pass by and forget, but He doesn’t!

And for those brought to my heart in the above lines...I’m praying for you ...may we have more of Him either by suffering and health. 

What do you sense God showing you as you communicate with Him in paying attention to your body?