It all started in the garden. God said, "Don't eat this." But it looked delectably delicious, and Eve ate it anyway. It seems like the struggle for self-control and the attainment of a certain kind of body has haunted humankind ever since. Speaking purely for the female population, I don't know that I have met a woman who has not at some point struggled with what she looks like or how much she weighs. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Over the years, I have often conformed and sometimes rebelled. I have frequently acknowledged defeat, while other times I have sworn to never be affected by impossible standards. I have tried diets, exercised in numerous disciplines and venues, and pleaded with God to take the struggle away. I have gained weight and lost weight. Through it all, I have come to a conclusion about what I call the Body Image Dilemma.
This struggle has taught me more about myself and God than probably just about any other struggle I have faced or will face. The Body Image Dilemma has brought me nose to nose with the internal struggle between my base desires (Romans 7:14-15) and the freedom I am promised as a child of God (Galations 5:1).
I can now freely acknowledge that I am human...and He said "It is good!" about humankind and about ME! I have desires, founded in a need for Him. My desires are good...created in me by the God of the universe. The problem comes when I am misguided in how I seek to fulfill those desires. For many people, food or exercise or looking a certain way seems like a good way to fulfill a desire. And sometimes it does...but just for a little while.
I want to learn to allow my desires to point me toward true fulfillment in Him. And I am still learning. There are still days when I overeat, or choose to be lazy, or sulk in discontentment over how I look. There are times when I obsess over calories eaten or miles completed. Feelings of inadequacy or comparison often surface.
But I am learning...
-When I am hungry, I am reminded that Jesus is the Bread of Life...the only One who can truly satisfy (John 6:35).
-When I think I hate exercise I am going to die, I remember that I do not run aimlessly. Rather, I beat my body and make it my slave so that I am not disqualified from the prize (1 Cor. 9:26-27).
-When I look in the mirror and am tempted to say Ick, I am reminded that I am a dearly loved child of God, and I am beautiful when I am His imitator (Eph. 5:1).
-When I am tempted to obsess over diet or exercise, I return to Biblical truth: "For
physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all
things, holding promise for both the present life and the
life to come" (1 Timothy 4:8).
In all things, I seek to remember...though sometimes I feel like a prisoner to my body and the war waging inside me, I have been delivered from slavery by Jesus (Romans 7:25)! The old has passed, and all things are becoming new (2 Cor. 5:17)! I want to choose to live in the the freedom for which Jesus saved me.
Thanks be to God, and His gift in the Spirit, I CAN choose freedom.
And I can accept His grace when I fall short.
What about you? What has God taught you through the Body Image Dilemma?
*Because I have had several conversations recently regarding this subject matter, I want to take the next few days to share some practical things that I have implemented in my life (or am seeking to implement!). I would love to interact with you on this subject. Many of you have a much greater scope of wisdom on this subject than I do, and I am ALWAYS trying to learn...so please share your own thoughts! My next post will specifically address FOOD.*
I find myself feeling anxious today. Anxious over silly things, especially in light of my last post. On one level, I find it rather amusing that we human beings--or maybe it's just me?--stress over things like money. Really? As if God's plan can be thwarted by a man-made system of currency? Somehow I think He is more than capable of handling such things. On another level, I do feel anxious over silly things today, and I can't deny that. So here I am...being real = )
Then I saw an internet-comment that encouraged me:
"Don't give up on what God has called you to do. The end result is worth
the pain."
Thank you, Lord, for your grace to my doubting, anxious heart.
Thought I would share in case He might use those words to encourage any other doubting, anxious hearts.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self
is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this
light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of
glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen
but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are
transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians
4:16-18
I look around and I wonder, where do I begin? Where do I begin to make sense of brokenness? Of Children gone to soon and life snuffed out and pain and hurt and gut-wrenching sorrow? Where does one begin?
Should I start at the beginning? I stand before the tree holding knowledge of all things, of life and death...before man KNEW. I stand before the tree and I gaze up at the succulent fruit. I wonder what those days were like, walking with God in the garden of perfection. Before mankind tasted the fruit of life and death, normal was perfect and perfect was normal. No tears. No pain. No losing. Only walking with God, hand in hand...perfect intimacy with the One who created all.
But then man tasted. Man bought into the knowing, the terrible understanding of life broken. Man disobeyed, and for it he paid a price unfathomable. Sickness. Ugliness. povertyhungermanslaughterweaknesswarbirthdefectscaraccidentsthieveryslandertears. Death.
Some days, I can't see past this lens of brokenness. I look at poverty, at war, at senseless dying and I cannot see beyond. I am bound by this terrible understanding of brokenness. I am held captive by the talons of sin.
Is this desperate landscape of brokenness all we have the capacity to see? If so, why does it feel so wrong? I cannot help but think of these words from C.S. Lewis: "If we find within ourselves a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
If this lens does not seem to fit right, it must not be the right lens. Praise be to God...for He has purchased with His blood a way for us to return to perfection. Few in this world live with the lens of perfection He paid for. Even those of us who have been given this staggering gift of grace sometimes throw our Heaven-tinted glasses to the side and don instead our sin-glasses.
Today, put on your Heaven glasses.Remember that this world is temporary. Embrace the desperation for renewal, the sorrow of brokenness...acknowledge that this is not the way things are supposed to be. Babies are not supposed to die because they are hungry. Daddies are not supposed to die while sons and daughters are still being fathered. Cancer is not supposed to eat healthy bodies. Beautiful teenage girls are not supposed to be stolen from life before they waltz at the prom.
As you wrap your hands and your mind and your whole being around the wrongness of it all, remember that "the things that are seen are transient." The wrongness is temporary. The rightness? Forever. Walking hand in hand with God of creation? Forever. The damnation of pain, suffering, death? Eternal.
It hurts. But it hurts a whole lot more when I choose the sin-glasses, when I forget that the garden-beginning is not the end. With the heaven glasses on, this I'm-going-to-die-this-hurts-so-much pain can become "a light and momentary affliction." With the heaven glasses on, the terrible image of my dad gasping his last breath becomes a beautiful snapshot of his birth into eternity.
Sin glasses? Death. Heaven glasses? Eternity birthday.
Today, even as I mourn things-gone-terribly-wrong, I will don my heaven glasses and choose to see all through the eyes of eternity.
Finding healing in the giggles and cuddles of little
ones…and a new passion and direction in—who knew?—nursing. GOD knew.
That moment of pure terror when I had to give my first
injection…haha. If only I knew what was to come…
Almost moving to Africa. Almost. And then realizing that
sometimes I think my ideas are better than His.
Meeting incredible patients. Serving incredible (and
sometimes not-so-incredible-but-equally-loved-by-Him) patients and finding
myself to be the one blessed.
Nursing school. What to say about nursing school… Can I just
tell some gross stories? No? You really don’t want to hear about blood, guts,
and gore? About the time I was asked to get a r*ct*l temperature and, well, the
guy had no…Okay, okay. You get the picture. Lots of delightfully gross stories.
Holding a home health job with equally gross and
you-did-WHAT? kind of stories.
******
I could go on, and on, and on…but then you would stop
reading (if you haven’t already?) and I would just be rambling to myself about
stories and memories I already hold in my heart.
I have been wounded. I have been torn, and hurt, and buried
deep. I have lost and been lost. I have been broken. But in the midst of it
all, I have discovered that
He makes beautiful things.
"God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Now, after a winding and sometimes tumultuous journey, I am
*officially* a nurse (say WHAT?!) and looking at a new unknown. And while I could choose to be anxious, and terrified, and full of questions—and sometimes I do choose worry over trust—today I choose thankfulness. Today I choose to marvel at His grace, and His grace through YOU…loving and supporting me along the way. All praise and glory to Him alone.
As I look back over the past year--and all the pain and heartache, interwoven with joy and numerous blessings, that came with it--I cannot pretend to understand this story God has been weaving in my life. There are so many things that don't make sense to me...and yet I know that God continues to reap blossoms of growth and new life from my bleeding heart.
After all this past year has held, I would be lying if I said I am free of apprehension as I look toward 2012. However, I know that nothing--neither life nor death, sickness nor the best of health, neither friendship nor relationships lost, poverty nor a bounty of blessings--NOTHING can move me from the hand of God. It is in this confidence that I move into 2012.
I have been asking God what He has for me this next year, and although He has not given me the road map of 2012 {I'd rather Him keep it anyway}, I have heard His still, small voice stirring in the deep places of my heart:
Be still and know that I am God. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
I ask, "God, what do you want from me in the next 12 months?"
He says, I want you to listen.
This world needs more people who are willing to listen to the heart of God. And although I am no master of this discipline (I am rather quite the novice), I want so desperately to hear. It is for this reason I am taking a year off from blogging. No, this is not a New Year's resolution...this is the result of much prayer and will be a daily choice to spend in different ways the time God so graciously gives me.
I don't know that I ever would choose to leave this writing place for any lesser task or calling, and I do sincerely believe that I will be back...for surely it was God who gave me this love of writing! I will most certainly miss this empty screen filling with my heart, although I want you to know that I will look forward to keeping up, periodically, with the writing and lives of those of you whose words have touched my life.
Please take the time today to reflect upon all that God has done for you in the past year...and how He might lead you in 2012.
From Luke 2: 8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
Glory to God and on earth...peace. The end of hostility between man and God. Freedom from strife. Peace.
I hear that word--peace--and I wonder. Where? How? How, when people cease living and choose dying? How, when money squeezes tight and families fall apart? How, when children cry alone at night, without family, without hope? Peace? ...how?
And yet that's why Jesus came, right? For peace. For reunification between God and mankind.
Once again, as the remembrance of that birth draws near, I sit still and listen. I sit with the shepherds in that long-ago field and cry out with the angels, "Glory to God!" And I whisper with desperation, "Please, God! Bring your peace!" Bring peace to this broken world.
"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).
Even as I sit, I hear His gentle whisper in response: "Seek peace and pursue it" (Psalm 34:14).
He is here. He is among us...God incarnate. The Prince of Peace. I wonder, "Where is peace?" And he answers: I am here.
THAT, my friends, is good news.
This Christmas, I am crying for a deeper longing to seek and pursue the Prince of Peace...to facilitate the collision of this world's brokenness with the very heart of God.
Wishing you a very joyful celebration of the Lord's birth...And may you find yourself seeking and pursuing the Prince of Peace this Christmas season.
Please, please take one minute out of your day to help my friends. They are in the process of adopting their 3-year-old daughter, who has been with them pretty much since her birth, from Kenya, but the process is taking longer than expected. Eden's mom had to come back to the States for the birth of their 3rd child, while Eden is still in Kenya with her dad. They just want to be reunited for Christmas and the birth of her little sister! Below is a note of explanation from Eden's grandma, and the link to a petition for Eden's cause. Please take a minute to sign it...it literally just takes a minute! Thank you so much!
Please, please, PLEASE take 3 minutes out of your day to sign this petition. As many of you know, my beautiful granddaughter, Eden, is in the process of being adopted from Kenya. The process is taking far longer than it should; and Eden is now separated from her brother, A*, and her mother (my daughter, M*, who is now in the US preparing to give birth to their 3rd child in January) while staying in Kenya with her dad, B*. The stress of the separation is tough for the whole family, but especially for 3 year-old Eden. PLEASE POST THIS LINK AS YOUR STATUS TO HELP BRING HER BACK BY CHRISTMAS. If you have any contacts that you think could help Eden's cause please let me know. Thank you
