Why I'm not giving up social media...on purpose

The words of the reckless pierce like swords,

but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

~ Proverbs 12:18

 

Just the other night, I contemplated giving up social media.  For good.  Having just read a vicious thread on a public school system media page in which the adult participants accused one another of stupidity and racism, I lay on the couch listening to the Officer read aloud yet another thread among Christians regarding gun control.  As the thread progressed, it also became increasingly judgmental, malicious, and ended with scripture-hurling bullying.  I was disappointed; and pointedly reminded that only a few short months ago, I was engaged in exactly the same type of discourse – thus I was clearly in no place to judge anyone then or today.  But, having experienced what my actions brought about, I knew I didn’t want or need this kind of negativity to be a part of what I ingest daily. 

Upon hearing my proposition, the Officer reminded me that we primarily use our social media outlets to keep our out of town families in the loop with photos of our kids; so giving it up entirely wouldn’t really work.      

Thus, I decided to apply my chosen one word to my social media channels.  I needed to use these tools to bring God glory, to invite others to know Him more deeply, to share His love to a world in such desperate need of it.  In previous times, when prompted thusly by a pastor, I posted daily scriptures.  And while I believe that God does work in those posts¹, I didn’t want to force it.  I had to consider, also, that a good number of my friends aren’t interested in God’s Word at all.  Thus I assume my scripture posts would be skimmed over, if not hidden entirely, and would eliminate my ability to be someone who genuinely cares for them.

 

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths,

but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

 ~ Ephesians 4:29

 

It was then I remembered a two-line note someone sent me months ago, for the sole purpose of encouraging me.  This individual and I have yet to meet in person, yet s/he took the time to let me know I was heard and valued.  Even more recently, a friend with whom we’d been out of touch for a while, sent me a message encouraging me in a very specific way – at the exact time I needed it most.  His words buoyed my spirit and reminded me of the truth I was struggling to grasp at that moment.  There was the epiphany: overcome the malicious content of social media with good.  With encouragement, with grace, with love. 

 

To be purposeful with my social media this year means:

·         Engage in NO debates [see Thursday’s Tuesday's* post for the parameters of this one]

·         Post updates that are TRUE [not inflated, self-aggrandizing versions of truth], honoring to God and my family, and embody the spirit of GRACE

·         Use my time on these sites to encourage others through public praise or private encouragement.

 

Yet, because I so easily fall into the trap of cheering on those closest to me – the easiest ones to compliment – I have also set the following goals for purposeful encouragement using my social media:

·         Send PM’s to whomever is on my mind that day – I will be prayerfully considering who to contact each day, and trusting that the Holy Spirit’s timing [assuming that I’m really listening] is perfect

·         Write or tweet an encouragement or praise to one person daily

·         Do this for all my acquaintances by December 31, 2013.

 

Thus, if you’re my Facebook friend or if we’re connected on Twitter, you can expect an encouraging word from me…within the next 12 months. 

I can’t help but wonder: what if we stormed social media, not with our opinions or what we ate today or how many miles/reps we completed, but with love and encouragement and kindness?  What if we overwhelmed all the negativity and vanity and evil with grace and kindness and goodness?  What if we drown out the anger and malice with an out-pouring of love and gentleness?  What if we dedicated ourselves to purposefully encouraging one another, finding little ways to genuinely communicate that people have value and worth, are cared for, and are deeply and eternally loved? 

That would be an excellent use of social media – and an outlet I’d be eager to partake in.       

 

                                                                                                                                                                                    

1.        I can’t count the number of times someone else’s scripture was exactly what I needed the exact moment they posted it

*As it turns out, I'll have to only post once a week -- this semester is already shaping up to be an exciting busy and formative one.  Thanks.

 

Purpose for the days when I struggle

                It’s been awhile now, but the memory still crops up every now and again.  Usually when I think about what I wish church looked like; when I am weary of the fight and considering just sitting back, retiring my fervor, and simply signing up for a women’s bible study.  Not that there’s anything wrong with women’s bible studies—quite the opposite!  There are lots of things very right about them.  But because I’ve never really fit in with the women’s ministry crowd, for me, they are a subtle surrender to comfort, and … less.

                 I remember I was at our church-at-the-time, chatting over “what’s going on with you these days” with a former pastor, our then-pastor, and my husband, the Officer.  The Officer had been invited to teach and our pastor was verbally applauding his ability thus, noting his seminary experience as additional reference.  I was beaming, genuinely, because I know that the Officer is a gifted teacher; and I love hearing others praise this quality as well. 

                Our former pastor then turned to me, knowing I, too, was a seminary student, and asked, “What about you, Jen?  Are you teaching here?”

                The honest answer was no; and I said as much, quickly and emphatically, trying to show that our pastor had not extended such an invitation.  I certainly did not want him implicated in allowing a woman to teach.  I did not even want the assumption permitted to linger. 

                The men returned to their small talk; but I couldn’t shake the apprehensive feeling of being found out.  You see, I do have a passion for teaching, a desire to share God’s Word.  And I do very firmly believe that women are capable of doing so.  Not just for the benefit of children and other women; but for the edification of the entire body.  And I believe that women are able to pastor as adeptly and appropriately as men.  I’m not saying I want the job, I certainly don’t consider myself qualified for it.  But I am saying that as a sex, we should be permitted to have it, if we are so called and gifted.  Which makes me a feminist in many eyes; a label I will not shun.  But for fear of using a word with so much negativity attached to it (at least in evangelical circles), I won’t go so far as to say that Jesus was a feminist, too.  Simply because Jesus wasn’t any –ist: not feminist, not humanist, not traditionalist, etc… 

                Jesus was and is a member of the Godhead.  As such, He knew that every single person, male or female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, is fallen and sinful; and therefore in desperate need of redemption and reconciliation.  Jesus knew that without Him, none of us can have a relationship with His Father, Almighty God.  And so, on behalf of all of us, He was crucified for our sins and rose again, victorious over death once and for all.  After which He sent the Holy Spirit, another member of the Godhead, to reside in the heart of every believer: male or female, Jew or Gentile, free or slave.  And the Holy Spirit, God’s presence indwelling the believer, gifts and empowers individual believers as He sees fit, not as humanity deems appropriate.       

                That being said, there are times when I still hesitate to openly share my position on the matter because it goes against so much tradition.  And when flouting tradition, one comes to expect a fight.  People, myself chief amongst, have emotional connections to their theology.  But when one’s theology is challenged, emotions are engaged and we can find ourselves involved in conflict that has the potential to end up being highly divisive and damaging.  Truth be told, I see holding this position as a difficult, long drawn-out pursuit not for the faint of heart.  A rebellion of sorts, not against God’s Word, but against the status quo; against the way things have always been.  Thus, I don’t want to assign allegiance to one who does not chose it; nor is it my place to out someone who quietly supports this truth, but has as yet not given it voice.  Because it is exhaustingly hard to battle constantly with tradition.  And I certainly don’t want to heave the weight of that struggle on anyone; so I find myself doing what I can to make sure the people around me aren’t associated too closely with my ideas, either through purpose or inadvertent assumptions.  I find myself being quiet, holding my tongue, or blithely nodding along when inside my head I’m refuting what’s being said to support the structures of tradition. 

                Which means that compounding the inherent struggle is the reality that there aren’t a lot of local like-minded groups.  Not too many studies or small groups or conferences or webinars hosted by local churches that facilitate this line of thinking.  So for someone in a semi-rural area, like me, holding to this truth can get kind of lonely.  And for all the support I can find in the twitter- and blogo-sphere, I fully admit that humans were designed as relational creatures; and these media outlets are a meager phantom standing in the stead of genuine, encouraging relationships.       

                It is in these lonely and weary times that I want to just quit.  Let someone else do the fighting for me.  It would be easier that way.  But then, I always think about what I want my daughter and son to grow up knowing: what it means to follow Jesus, even when it’s hard or lonely or long.  And I think of what it must have been like to follow Him when He walked among humanity.  His followers had to contend with the Essenes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Gentiles; groups that didn’t often agree.  While Christ did much to correct their doctrines during His incarnation, He didn’t come specifically for that purpose.  He came to make a way for all who desired fellowship with Almighty God.  Even those, mentioned above, who should have known better.   

                Thus in keeping with my one word for 2013, I have decided to be purposeful in my interactions both online and in real life.  First and foremost, I will daily strive to be worthy of the gospel which has saved me. I will seek first to promote the revelatory and sanctifying truth that all who believe in Jesus and follow Him with their whole lives will be saved.  From there, because I know better, I will keep fighting for the truth that Jesus came on behalf of all people; that His Spirit indwells all those who believe in Him and receive His sacrificial death as their own; that God Almighty calls and equips and empowers all those whom He wills, be they male or female, free or slave, Jew or Gentile, for the edification of all believers, the expanse of His kingdom, and the glorification of His Holy and Righteous Name. 

                I will not allow silence to be an assention, a surrender.  I will speak for those who cannot, for those who don't yet have the strength or courage, for those who do not yet know.  But above all, though I may grow weary, or lonely, or afraid, I will rest in truth of gospel of Jesus Christ, who came to give freedom to the captives and healing to the brokenhearted.  


  

How to eradicate evil

In truth, what I did* yesterday was not very hard.  But it felt like it. 

The Officer and I looked our public-schooled, 9 and 7 year olds in the eyes; and we told them the truth. 

        Evil stalks even the steps of the innocent, the defenseless. 

We told them about the tragedy in an elementary school classroom, thousands of miles away.  We talked about how each of those children would eat dinner with Jesus that night; how they would be forever safe and forever loved.  But we also talked about how much it would hurt their families to be without them (no, the Officer and I could not get through that without choking up).  We talked about how the police and teachers and adults did what they could to keep those children safe, about how the adults in their lives strive to keep them safe.  And we talked about how sometimes, for reasons we can’t understand, evil destroys, evil steals, and that sometimes, evil kills. 

But we also asserted what I know without a doubt:

        There was not one moment that God was not in that room

                --present with each one of those children. 

                They were never, not for one breath, alone.       

Then we told them if they had any questions, at any point, to come and ask us.  If they want to talk about it, one of us is always available.  And we told them that if they wanted to pray: for the children, for their families, for the police, the students, the teachers; or to ask God, “why,” that one of us was always ready to do that right beside them.  But if they just wanted to talk to God about it alone, with only Him, He was always, always ready. 

And then, we went on with life.  A little more tenderly, a little more carefully, a little more aware than we had before.  Because that is what life does; even when we’re not entirely ready for it to, it goes on.

Honestly, reader, this was not a conversation I wanted to have with our children.  The Officer leaned towards sheltering them.  I don’t blame him; who wants their children to know that sometimes, on this rotten and broken planet, evil wins?  Who wants to look into the eyes of innocence and shatter it with the truth that sometimes all of our efforts and prayers just aren’t enough?  That sometimes the outcome seems to be the opposite of what a loving God would do?

But if we hide the truth, shelter them from the reality that there are days when evil seems to have won, then we miss the fullness of the very story of redemption and grace. 

There will be a lot of people in the next few days and weeks who will connect this tragedy with the truth that we are a world in desperate need of a Savior.  And they’re right.  We are in desperate need of our Lord and Savior.  But if we do not or cannot answer the reality of this tragedy with the fullness of truth, then we have given evil more power than it should have.  For the truth isn’t only that the world needs a Savior, but the truth is also why we need one.  Not merely to save us from the evil of madmen who slaughter innocents; but save us from the plague of sin and death that is incubating in each and every one of us.  Believer and non.  Parent and child.  Loved and un. 

Every single person ever needs a Savior to rescue us from ourselves, for we are the germinators of death. 

Because each and every single one of us has enough sin and depravity in us (when considered from the vantage point of a holy and perfect and just God) to outweigh any good we could ever do – in collective or in individual.  There isn’t enough good in the human race—through all of history, both forward and back—to tip the scales against evil.  And it doesn’t take a massive tragedy like yesterday to prove that.  All it takes is one glance at the state of our planet, the state of our families, the state of our very hearts (our pride, or greed, or anger, or lust, or self-absorption).       

The only thing that can eradicate evil from humanity is the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.  And while this death was a once-for-all atonement for our breaking the rules that protected all creation, even the hearts of our fellow humans (for which we each, individually, earn and germinate death), it only applies if it's accepted.  We accept this exchange of Jesus for ourselves by admitting that as individuals we are culpable in our disobedience, and that no good we ever do will be enough to pay for what we have individually destroyed of our own volition.  This acceptance requires the desire to have our debt paid for by Jesus; and to then hand over our pitiful attempts at a good life to Him, so that we may be made more like him by following his example and leaving our old life of hurtful and destructive disobedience behind.

Thus if we shield one another from the truth of our destructive ways, our human history of depravity, our personal experience with evil , then we leave no room for grace to intervene, to change the track of eternity.  We hide evil, but in doing so, we shut out Truth and we silence Love. 

Because God already acted on our behalf.  He sent his very own, only Son to die in our stead.  He choose to sacrifice His child for us.  And in doing so, He ultimately and completely defeated evil with unrelenting and incomprehensible Love. 

Practicality – How I’m handling the next few days

I will be honest, reader.  As a parent, I cannot think about the events of Friday morning.  I cannot watch the news, read social feeds, or be online.  I cannot let my mind go there – put myself in the place of those parents, picture that room, imagine what those little innocents endured.  I cannot because I don’t think I’d be able to come up for air.  I think that darkness would devour my sleep and take up permanent residence in my thoughts. 

And that’s okay, because my ruminations, my empathy, will do nothing for the situation.  I can hand it all – the little ones, their families, the first responders, the survivors, everyone – over to God.  He is the only One big enough to handle all of this pain anyway.

I will not, in a public forum, engage in conversations about gun control or mental health policies, or any other political topics roused by this tragedy.  Because, in all honesty, now is simply not the time.  Nor will I discuss theological theories about the why’s of this horror; for again, now is not the time. 

Neither will I talk about my reaction to this event.  I am not personally affected; I have no ownership of it.  Thus it is not for me to add to the noise of the crowd, thereby detracting from the real pain experienced by those touched by this tragedy.

 I will not seek out feel-good stories that will restore my faith in humanity.  Because faith in humanity is misplaced and bound to not merely disappoint, but epically and eternally fail. 

If how I’m handling these next few days feels wrong for you, know that it is okay to feel grief, even if you knew no one affected.  It is okay to be angry.  It is okay to be scared.  It is okay to be confused or conflicted (passivism v. justified action; forgiveness v. anger; fear v. unshaken faith).  It’s okay to seek out some light – in the form of stories that show the good in humanity or in circling your proverbial wagon and sharing time and love with those you hold most dear (and no, guilt has no place therein – don’t give it space); because for so many of us, we must see that the light remains, that it still exists, that hope and love can still win.  And it’s also more than okay to hand whatever you’re feeling over to the Holy Spirit, without explanation.  He knows your heart, He really doesn’t need one.     

Just be sure to fall on your knees—in grief, in fear, in anger, in confusion, in desperation.  Beg for healing, for understanding, for courage (in my case, to send my kids to school on Monday), for justice, for mercy, for Christ to come quickly.  And stay there as long as you need to. 

Then get up, and fight the darkness.  With Truth, with Love, with Light.  Be these in the world, so that Love and Truth and Light and Hope win the day.  Remind evil once again that it has its eviction notice, and that all of creation strains evermore towards that day.     

              ~Come, Lord Jesus, come.  Amen~

 

* There are parents who will choose a different path; and I am not here to defend my choice, nor to judge theirs.  The Officer and I choose to tell our children, because we felt it would be too challenging in the next few days/weeks to shield them from it and we would rather control the information and frame it in context that is appropriate for our family, instead of running damage control after the fact.      

To Lucy, on her 100th birthday. With Love, from Ethel

This post comes from the archives, because it fits so perfectly here today.  See the original post here. 

 

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~C.S. Lewis

[I hold no rights to the "I Love Lucy" logo, its characters, or any other representations herein.]

 

A week or so ago marked the 100^th anniversary of what would have been Lucille Ball’s birthday. No doubt there were I Love Lucy marathons, and boxes of chocolate. Perhaps somewhere someone concocted a bottle of “Vitamina Vegamin” or two. But certainly, no celebration would have been complete without a nod to Ethel; the fictitious Lucy’s closest friend, dearest confidant, and greatest accomplice.

Lucy and Ethel, Thelma and Louise, Scarlet and Melanie, Ruth and Naomi. And more recently, Aibileene and Minny. Women who were stronger, better, more alive because of a single common denominator: her best friend. It is interesting to note that some of the most oft used scripture in wedding ceremonies wasn’t spoken between lovers, but between women. Ruth doesn’t pledge to follow Boaz, make his people and God hers; she promises this to Naomi, her destitute mother-in-law who is throwing verbal rocks at her (a la Timmy and Lassie), trying to get Ruth to abandon her. But Ruth stays.

Women stay, for the sake of each other. Thelma and Louise have their fateful cliff. Aibileene and Minny together motivate an entire community of women to share their stories, for change. Melanie opens her home and heart to Scarlett, despite the later continually throwing herself at Melanie’s husband. Each of us needs a friend of this sort. The kind that will spoon food into your mouth, just to keep you alive when you haven’t the strength anymore. The kind that always, always assumes the best about you. The kind that calls you forward into the person you’re supposed to be.

In the first chapter of Luke, tucked neatly into the nativity narrative, is a small passage so often overlooked by any expounding on the miracle of the Christ child’s birth. It’s in between the glorious Annuciation and the Magnificat. Seven verses, in which Mary leaves her home, supernaturally pregnant with Jesus, and visits her cousin, Elizabeth. Scripture doesn’t illuminate Mary’s emotive state during this visit; but she is a teenage girl, betrothed yet unwed, and pregnant, though still a virgin. Great though her faith must have been, I doubt that she was as carefree on the road to Elizabeth’s, as she likely was before the angel visited her.

Her song, a few verses later, is one of the most beautiful in scripture; a hymn likened by some to Hannah’s (1 Samuel 2), when Hannah dedicates her son to the Lord. A statement of faith so rich in theology and yet personal enough to apply to a teenage Jewess, that has been studied, memorized, and quoted at great length. However, Mary does not break into song immediately after the angel’s announcement that she is to be the mother of the Messiah. No. Mary, without her parents or betrothed, hurriedly travels to her cousin, Elizabeth. Some speculate she was trying to escape public disgrace; perhaps even save her family and betrothed from embarrassment; but scripture is silent on the why, so we can only know that Mary sought out company with Elizabeth. Elizabeth, the older, married antithesis of Mary, is also miraculously expecting a baby. And like Mary, Elizabeth is experiencing a type of isolation born from her pregnancy; her husband has been struck mute for his disbelief, and will not speak again until after their child is born.

The instant these women are in sight of one another, their very presence encourages the other. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit when Mary calls out to greet her, and the baby within Elizabeth’s womb leaps. Her delight that Mary would visit her pours forth in her greeting, as Elizabeth loudly proclaims truth over her, calling Mary “the mother of my Lord” and saying, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear” (Luke 1:43, 42). And it is when she ends with, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her,” that Mary is able to praise her Lord for His promises to her (Luke 1:45). Perhaps until that point, this promise seemed more like a burden; her fiancé had intended to divorce her quietly and she was likely the recipient of public ridicule (John 1:19). But with Elizabeth’s Holy Spirit inspired speech, Mary is able, in spite and because of her circumstances, to “glorify the Lord” and “rejoice in God [her] savior” (Luke 1:46-47).

It takes another woman, not her parents, not her betrothed, not even an angel, to give the Messiah’s mother a voice for praise. It is the relationship between these two women, grounded in their faith and infused with the Holy Spirit, that washes their loneliness and fear away with truth. This friendship takes each woman where she is, and points her ever closer to God, moves her to a place where she can see above her current circumstances to the provision and abounding grace of God the Father. This is the kind of friendship that illuminates God’s fingerprints on our lives. It highlights His promises and awakens our hearts to movements within and around us. It is the model of friendship that we each so desperately need; that we all are called to.

May you have and delight in such a friend. And may you be this friend to others.

 

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.

~William Shakespeare

 

How not to make the holy mother an idol --

Granted, I do not hold to the ideologies that Mary remained a virgin her entire life, that she was without original (or any other) sin, or that she is the queen of heaven by way of being Jesus’ mom.  However, I think evangelicals veer too far toward over-analytic caution when they approach the passages in which she dwells.  It’s as if the non-Catholic portion of the body feels the need to gloss over her very existence so that potential veneration of the holy mother not eclipse the Savior Himself.  Thus we do much to shrink her from a revered position in our efforts to keep her our size.  And most of the time this is a good thing.  Jesus is the only human who was ever worthy of our adoration – because he was also completely divine. 

But some of our attempts at belittling Mary can be mistakes in themselves. 

For God told her, and her alone, that the Messiah was coming.  Yes, Mary needed to know; but in a time when a woman had little control over her condition, it would have been so much easier if God had told her when she was with Joseph or even her father.  Easier, and expected.  But God, knowing the cost of what He was asking, gave Mary the task of telling the people who would be most affected, second only to her.  Thus, it was for her obedience that she was elevated over Zachariah.  It was her willingness to be the handmaiden of the Lord, to accept this task, to literally carry this burden that we should remember and emulate.       

For we must recall that Gabriel, an angel who daily stood [stands] in the presence of the Lord said to her, “Greetings to you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you!”  In a time when the Lord’s presence was supposed to reside in the holy of holies in the temple, the Holy Spirit descended upon Mary.   The only woman of her day to experience this continue presence of the Godhead; the only woman to know of the impending arrival of God’s Messiah (though she could not have known what that meant or would look like).  The only woman in the whole of human history to carry within her very body Christ.    

Let us not forget, beloved friends, that God did choose Mary to be the mother to His One and Only Son.  And though she was still fully and completely human, sinning just like all the rest of us, she remains the only person in all of history who carried Divinity in her womb, who nursed the Messiah at her breast, who kissed the downy softness of the head of one-third of the Trinity housed in flesh.  And it was so because God ordained it thus.  He picked her out of all humanity and history.  It is because of this that she should be highly venerated, as even her angelic messenger told her that she had found favor with God.   

No, we mustn’t elevate her to a position which she cannot fill: intercessor on our behalf in the heavenly realms.  Person who stands between us and Christ.  Yet we do her, nor womanhood, nor God’s very decision to let her be the mother of the Messiah, no favors when we diminish this truth by making her smaller than she is to topple our perceived pedestals on which the idea of Mary rests.

If we can seek to emulate Paul’s evangelism after being left for dead by the people he was trying to reach, if we can marvel at the powerful rhetoric of Stephen as he was being martyred, if we can marvel at Abraham’s obedience as he took his only son up the mount to sacrifice Isaac to the Lord, we cannot ignore the young woman who was picked by God to care for His only Son incarnate.  The woman who wiped the boy’s tears, the woman who sang the songs of the Israelites to her son, the woman who did what mothers do: tirelessly care for the heart living outside of her person. 

We mustn’t ignore her, gloss over her in fear that we will misplace our worship.  Instead, we have to tell her story, again and again.  Learn her words as she praised God for what was to be the hardest and most crucial task assigned to humanity: raise the Messiah, and then let Him go.  And we have to emulate her obedience, her understanding of the scriptures and God’s promises.  We have to hold the truth of God breaking into humanity, so that we all might be save; and run into the world with this news.  Nurture this truth, rear it in our hearts, care for it with all of ourselves.  And then, let it go.  Watch its wild and beautiful truth change the whole world. 

       For God’s Kingdom Is Come.

 

 

Exquisite Beauty

Declaration 9:  The new creation that I am loves her body as an exquisite gift from her Heavenly Father, to be treated as the vessel for her greatest adventures, her grandest experiences, and her most resplendent worship.  She will care for her body, the temple for the Holy Spirit, as an expression of thankfulness for this gift. 

For beauty is defined by the Author,

and His creation is inherently beautiful.

In a culture so caught up in image, in false beauty, in narrower-than-the-gates-of-Heaven fitness ideals, this declaration smacks of vanity.  Either scope of the pendulous I-want-to-look-good-naked-a-la-fashion-magazine to i-hate-my-body-because-of-what-I-see-in-the-mirror is a form of vanity.  And each mocks a Designer who is perfect in both plan and execution. 

 

 I’ve had women friends tell me that going a day without makeup is torturous; and others who say being photographed without it resembles a boudoir session.   Men who spend hours lifting weights, others who run as though if they stop their demons will catch them.  I’ve heard little girls lament the hue of their skin, little boys undone over the color of their hair.  And I wonder, how must this grieve the Holy Spirit?  What must the Creator think when His creation bewails the beauty intrinsic in His creation, in His palette, His angles or lines, His slopes or curves?  Is He frustrated with our incessant striving for such a fictitious ideal, when He wove individuality and uniqueness into every space of creation?  Particularly when the God who oversaw every detail, each resplendent jewel, of the Temple in which His Spirit would be present, chooses to indwell our frames with His presence.  If Solomon’s temple was the most grand thing humans could build, how much more so must the body of each believer be in the eyes of the Lord if His Holy Spirit takes up residence therein?

Thus, my body, regardless of how I think of it [or how I have treated it] must be more beautiful than the Temple.  More dazzling than the arc of the presence.  More amazing than the holy of holies, because the Spirit of the Lord resides within me; and I am His creation for thus, even more exacting than the human-hewn temple.  And I shall treat it as such.  In its current state: without reaching my ideals, without countless months at the gym, without rigid nutritional makeovers.  Right now.  As I am.  As you are, beloved.
   
Yes, I should fuel my body with the nutrients that were designed for this purpose, not with what’s most convenient.  Yes, I should engage in physical activities that maintain my overall health and mobility.  And yes, I should encourage others to do the same.  But conversely, heeding the colloquialism “everything in moderation” is [mostly] permissible as well.[1]  So a life of rigid abstinence and disciplined striving towards physical perfection is not the most honoring course of action for a believer.  Because they can lead to stringent reliance and blind focus on self; which, because it removes focus from God the Creator, is sinful.

Therefore, in order to honor my maker, I will honor His creation.  Me.  My body.  Not the body gracing the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.  Not the body of my Pilates instructor.  No body that is not mine is something after which I will chase any more.  I will revel in the feats of which it has rendered me capable: bringing two amazing children into the world, and the inevitable changes that came with motherhood; still skiing and summiting five 14ers, in spite of an inherited bum knee; being able to preform, though still hesitant, wrist breaks, because one did and I’ve lost some range of motion because of it.  And I will continue to reach for new ones; but I will not allow any ideal from anywhere to displace my delight in my physical form.  And I beg you not to either.      

As you might know, I was recently involved in an auto accident [seatbelts and booster seats, people!]; and while everyone’s fine, there were a few days there when I didn’t feel fine.  I was chained to my bed or sofa with headaches, hobbled with pain, unable to sleep or move for all the bruises.  My loved ones were forced to give me a wide berth because even their gentlest touches hurt.  I couldn’t go to the gym, couldn’t play with my kids, couldn’t even walk through the grocery store at a normal pace.  It was pretty miserable and lonely.  Not because the people who care about me abandoned me, but because I felt unable to participate in life. 

This isn’t an exercise in self-pity; it was actually revelatory for me.  There are so many people who experience pain or limited mobility or have an illness that prevents them from living the life they expected.  And as cranky as I was after a week, I have the utmost respect for those who endure this battle every day.  My prayers this week are for the people who struggle with pain, with limitations in this physical body, with unseen disabilities, with illness that steals their physical state.  Whether it was self-inflicted; or whether it was inexplicable.  Join me in being mindful and praying for those for whom their physical body feels more like a prison than a gift.  For the Lord is the rescuer of prisoners and the redeemer of the physical, either here or in the time to come.      

 

Visit one of my favorite blogs and activists on this topic: Beauty Redefined to take back the definition of what’s truly beautiful. 

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[1] See Ecclesiastes.  And note that while “everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial” (1 Corinthians 10:23).  And that there remain certain appetites that are outside the boundary of scripture and should therefore be avoided all together.