Blog Archives
And then God showed up.
I wasn’t going to put up a blog post today. Fact is, I’ve been feeling pretty ambivalent about keeping this blog going at all. I vacillate between “It’s not worth the energy; no one reads it” and “It’s so important; this is what I’m passionate about.” I am alternately discouraged that I don’t have the stats to rival my favorite bloggers and discouraged with myself for not producing whatever would earn me those stats. “I am tired; I am weak; I am worn. Take my hand, precious Lord.”
So yeah, I wasn’t going to post today. I was feeling whiny and small and overlooked. I was feeling voiceless. I was giving up.
But this morning I woke up at the crack of dawn. Which I hate and never do because morning people are all terrible, chipper, and HAPPY in the morning. I cannot relate.
But this morning I woke up anyway, before the sun was up, before my husband was up, and by 6am I had tossed and turned myself right out of bed, into my clothes, and across the street to the misty, deserted salt marsh.
The marine layer was so low I couldn’t even see the tips of the mountains to my left or the horizon between the cloud cover and the Pacific Ocean on my right. Everything was quiet, except for that man talking loudly on his phone as I passed his window. (Who makes calls at 6am? Morning people!)
I walked slowly, not quite contemplatively, through the sage along the gravel path and wound my way across the estuary. I stopped on the bridge and watched the ducks and leopard sharks swim in wide circles and figure 8s. I breathed deeply. I looked up at the misty morning, still dark enough that my sensitive eyes could take everything in through their own lenses and not the dark ones I carry with me everywhere. I continued on.
I turned on my iPod and played a guided Lectio Divina reading I downloaded from my new friend Christianne Squires’ Cup of Sunday Quiet. (I highly recommend it, by the way!) I walked slowly through the salt marsh, noticed my breathing, and listened to a gospel reading in Christianne’s measured voice. I walked. I breathed. I listened.
And then God showed up.
I don’t know why I am always surprised when God does that. But I am, every single time. Maybe it’s because at the bottom of everything, at the very root of the deepest lies that cause the woundedness in my life, I don’t believe God is trustworthy. Still. Even after all the healing, all the truth, all the trust God and I have built up in our relationship over the years. Even after the dark night of the soul and the wilderness experience and all the ways God has tried to mature my faith, even now I am still surprised when God shows up.
I expect it more often. I trust that despite my lack of faith it will happen. But I’m still surprised.
Or maybe it’s more that God just enjoys surprising me. Maybe it’s that God delights in delighting me. Maybe it’s like God is playing hide-and-seek with the child in myself.
Me: God, where are you? I’m looking for you.
God: Here I am! You found me!
And you know what? I just couldn’t wait to get back home and put up this blog post. Because really and truly, my lovely readers, know this: God delights in delighting you, too. God enjoys surprising us. God, with infinite wisdom and gentle grace, continues to show up for each of us, every time. All we have to do is get quiet, get listening.
All we have to do is show up, too.
Meditative Movement and Imaging the Presence of God
photo credit: RelaxingMusic via photopin
Hello, lovely readers! I’m back to blogging after an unofficial month-ish off. Did you miss me?
After some much needed rest and a break from productivity, I’m excited to get back to HBTB and share what has been coming up for me this summer.
Learning to rest and to allow myself to feel unproductive has been an ongoing challenge. There is always that lingering guilt and pressure to perform and to do so that I’m not wasting my time or being lazy.
But I have found that if I can get to a place of allowing myself to become restful and to be, then I am able to experience so much needed restoration and rejuvenation that I could never access otherwise. It is a constant choice toward balance, a journey to the middle. I’m getting there.
In my own spiritual life, I have found such peace and life in pursuing contemplative forms of prayer. One way that I am moving toward balance in my life is seeking out forms of meditative movement that provide the opportunity to release my mind from the rigors of left-brained living as well as engage my body in the overall spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being of my whole self.
There are a number of forms of meditative movement around. Some, like body prayer, can be very overtly Christian while others, like Yoga, are more accessible to a variety of faith traditions including those who claim none. In my search for a gentle, meditative exercise that would be kind to my currently limited physical condition, I came across Qi Gong. Similar to Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, and other movements, Qi Gong is the practice of visualizing the healing flow of energy throughout the body using a series of stretches and motions designed to promote healing and health.
Here’s a description of Qi Gong that I really like:
If the language of “energy” is uncomfortable to you, you might like this meditation on The Lord’s Prayer using Qi Gong movements:
For me, talking about the healing flow of energy always makes me think of the active movement of the Holy Spirit, which is the presence of God within and around us. I often visualize the Holy Spirit as a wisp of smoke like from an extinguished candle or a living ball of gentle light. Sometimes the light becomes a bright fireball in my mind’s eye!
What about you?
Do you have an image that represents the presence of God in your life? Maybe you like the scriptural images of wind, water, or a white dove. Share your image in the comment box below. I always love hearing from you!
Gender-Inclusive Language; Gender-Inclusive God (Part 2)
From the archives: originally posted January 18th and 19th, 2012
Now to come to the point. After all this journey toward freedom from gender-specific language about people and about God, I still don’t have all the answers. I still don’t have it all worked out. I’m not sure anyone does. We live in a time where change happens so quickly. We try to define the era we live in while we’re living in it, an impossible task. So instead of being prescriptive and laying out a neat outline of what must be done as an advocate of gender-inclusive language, I choose to be descriptive and share what works for me and why I’ve made the choices I’ve made.
I think any effort to be gender-inclusive, even if it’s done imperfectly, should be commended for the effort itself.
So if you like to “he/she” and “himself/herself” your way through the world, that’s wonderful.
If you prefer to “he” your way through one paragraph and “she” your way through the next, that’s excellent, too.
If you’re a “oneself” kind of person, which some people consider a little stilted and impersonal, I will still appreciate you.
And if you’re like me, you might prefer simply “we”-ing through the whole thing and when “we”-ing doesn’t fit well, bringing back the singular “they” which had fallen out of use for a century or two and is steadily gaining new life again.
Then of course, let’s not forget to transform those “mans” and “mankinds” into “humans,” “peoples,” “humanitys,” “human races” and even “humankinds.”
(Confused? Here’s a helpful guide on gender-inclusive language.)
So “we” have now established that effort toward a mindfulness of gender-inclusive language is preferable when talking about ourselves and each other. But what about when we talk about God?
Remember when Madeleine L’Engle was writing about her perspective on gendered language? She referred to Genesis 1:27 as the basis for “man” being inclusive of both male and female. Here’s how the TNIV translates the verse:
So God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
If it takes both a man and a woman together to represent the image of God, then why is it that we often only use male language when referring to God? One common argument is that God is described in male language in the Bible; therefore, Bible-believing Christians must follow God’s example and continue to use male language to describe God.
Let me be clear. I do not think there is anything wrong with using male language or masculine imagery for God. In fact, God as the Father is one of my most precious expressions for God in my personal spiritual journey.
What I think is unhelpful is referring to God using male language at the exclusion of female language and feminine imagery. Christian mothers like Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, and Catherine of Siena helped bridge the gap by describing God using male language and at the same time feminine imagery. For example, Julian of Norwich wrote of Jesus nursing us at his breasts and described Jesus as “our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come.”
In today’s Christian culture, many people are too quick to settle on God as Him and dismiss the movement of the Mother-Father-God-ers as radical and perhaps even heretical. For me, I strive for a more moderate stance. That’s why I avoid gender-specific pronouns when I talk about God. That’s why I still refer to Jesus as male (because he was a man, even if he isn’t still). That’s why I like to refer to the Holy Spirit as female, because so much of my experience of the divine feminine has come through encounters with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit-inspired.
Even when I must use gender-specific pronouns so as not to write myself into ridiculously awkward sentence structures, I try to use “he” and “him” or “she” and “her.” That way I know I am not saying God is “He” as in God-the-All-Masculine or “She” as in God-the-All-Feminine. Instead, I say God is “he” as in God-as-God-embodies-the-masculine or God is “she” as in God-as-God-embodies-the-feminine. In this way, I am able to balance the masculine and the feminine aspects of the Trinity, which is very biblical. At least for right now, this is what works for me.
(Does the idea of God as “she” rock your world? Ask yourself what it would be like if the situation were reversed and God as “he” was revolutionary. Watch out for double standards and try to be mindful of the way language may affect others, even if it doesn’t affect you that way.)
We all know that when the pendulum swings away from one extreme, it inevitably swings right past the middle and reaches the other extreme before it can gradually settle more and more toward the balance the middle brings. My journey with gender-inclusive language has swung from one side where “man” includes both men and women to the other side where God as “He” and “Him” makes me feel like I, as “she” and “her,” am not part of the image of God after all.
Maybe my reaction is too extreme. Maybe as the pendulum of my journey continues to swing back and forth, I will come closer and closer to the perfect balance of the middle ground.
But I’m not there yet.
So for now, oh ye readers, you will see me still swinging. Let’s approach both ourselves and each other with grace, and give each other room to swing out as far as we need to, safe in the knowledge that we will also have room to swing back.
Gender-Inclusive Language; Gender-Inclusive God (Part 1)
From the archives: originally posted January 16th and 17th, 2012
I grew up in a politically and spiritually conservative Southern hometown. When I was younger, I thought conversations about gender-inclusion were silly, that people who made such a big deal out of small things were petty and that they should stop trying so hard to fight against what’s normal and accepted and expected. The first time I read dear Madeleine L’Engle‘s Walking on Water, I agreed with her when she wrote,
I am a female of the species man. Genesis is very explicit that it takes both male and female to make the image of God, and that the generic word man includes both….That is Scripture, therefore I refuse to be timid about being part of mankind. We of the female sex are half of mankind, and it is pusillanimous to resort to he/she, him/her, or even worse, android words….When mankind was referred to it never occurred to me that I was not part of it or that I was in some way being excluded.
I agreed with her because I thought that was my experience, too. I thought I understood myself as intrinsically included equally in the world alongside my brothers, my father, my male classmates, and all the men I knew. All through grade school, high school, and most of college, I maintained this understanding. Then in my search for a church community near my college, I stumbled upon a respectable little PCA church nearby.
Being ignorant of the difference between PCA and PCUSA denominations, I began attending. For a while, I enjoyed the verse-by-verse explication of Galatians in the Sunday School class, and I dutifully followed the class into the sanctuary each week for the main church service.
But then I noticed something disturbing.
The senior pastor, a man, would lead us in a weekly congregational prayer for all the men in seminary and all the men on the mission field, asking God to empower the future leaders of the Church. I found myself wondering, what about the women in seminary and the women on the mission field? At the time, I already had close female friends in both categories, not to mention I have a number of female missionaries in my family tree, including my grandmother.
Then I noticed something else. There were only men up front. Men preached. Men led and performed the music. Men prayed. Men served communion. Men took up the offering. Once I saw a woman stand up to share an update about the Children’s Ministry, and I was shocked when she stood on the ground in front of the pulpit while the man in the pulpit unhooked the microphone from its stand and handed it down to her. Why didn’t he just move over so she could speak on the raised stage where everyone could see her? I wondered. Her speech seemed disembodied because I could only see the slight movement of the top of her head as she spoke. I was disturbed to see a woman in ministry so publicly and literally positioned below a man in ministry.
That was the last time I attended that church.
I didn’t think too much more about the issue until I moved to California after college to enter seminary. I was surprised at some of the reactions I got from my friends back home. Some asked me what degree I was pursuing and were visibly relieved when I told them I wasn’t planning to be a pastor. Others actually told me I was going to hell and stopped speaking to me. While some of my family members were supportive and even encouraging of my seminary training, others became hurtful and even combative, telling me I should come home, that I shouldn’t be in seminary because I’m a woman.
Then there were the people I met in seminary, both students and professors. Not just women, but men were advocating for women in ministry, arguing for equality, and providing opportunities for women to step up into leadership positions. My seminary has a seminary-wide gender-inclusive language policy, and I was surprised as I began sitting in lectures and writing papers how thoroughly ingrained I was in gender-specific language, especially when it came to language about God.
The more I thought about the language I used, the more I realized that I had been wrong when I thought the issue was silly and petty. I was wrong to agree with Madeleine L’Engle that everyone was intrinsically included in gender-specific language. The more I learned about the history behind the language and the way it had been used to marginalize and oppress over the centuries, the more convinced I became that it was my responsibility as a woman, as a Christian woman, as a Christian woman who–dare I say it?–has been given certain qualities and skills of a leader, to hold myself to a higher standard of language and to advocate for gender-inclusion, not just in language but in life–church life, home life, and public life.
That’s a tall order. And as an introvert, as a conflict-avoidant person, and as woman who grew up believing barefoot-and-pregnant was all was I meant to be, living into my calling as a female Christian leader seems impossible. Yet, God does not call us to impossible tasks, for the Bible tells me so: the Spirit of God does not make me timid but gives me power, love, and self-discipline (2 Tim 1:7).
Indeed, the Spirit I received does not make me a slave to culture or to other people’s expectations of who I am supposed to be so that I return to live in fear again of coloring outside other people’s lines; rather, the Spirit I received brought about my adoption as a daughter of God–by which I receive all the honor, standing, and inheritance of the Most High God. And because of this Spirit and this adoption, I cry out to God with all the confidence and innocence of a toddler calling for “ma-ma” or “da-da” (or “a-ba”)…and I know God answers me with all the immediacy, care, and tenderness of a proud and loving parent (Romans 8:15).
To be continued in the next post.
Guest Post Series: Five Questions on…Cultures (with Kristi)
Cultures
with Kristi Rice
1) Describe your experience in other cultures and the attitude toward/relationship to body image you observed there.
2) How has that relationship/attitude affected the way you think about your body and/or your self-image?
I find that in one sense I am more conscious of my body because of the frequent comments from friends or strangers about my body. If I have been away for more than a week, people who I greet on the street are likely to make an assessment like, “You’ve gained weight! Must have been a good trip.” Or “Did you get sick? You’ve lost weight.” Often, we will hear both paradoxical perspectives in the same day, so we’ve learned to laugh and not take it seriously. Yet, the Congolese perspective has made me less self-conscious about my body size also. I have learned to appreciate being healthy more than having certain image. As white people living in an African country, we are often stared at, scrutinized, and touched simply because of the novelty of seeing a foreigner up close. So – it really helps to be comfortable with who you are!3) How has that relationship/attitude affected the way you relate to others?
I feel a greater sense of freedom in relating to others. Joining the Congolese in their culture of being frank and open about our bodies seems to help me be more “real” in other aspects of the relationship. Last year I shared with Therese, a Congolese friend, about my embarrassment and annoyance when people on the road would make comments (sometimes shouting comments) about my body as I was jogging. Therese laughed, shared her own even more humiliating experience, and told me I should not let it bother me. Those shared experiences are so encouraging and helpful!4) How has that relationship/attitude affected your spiritual life?
Living in Congo, where we are daily confronted with people who are hungry, sick, or desperately poor, has prompted me to be grateful for the simple, basic things in life, like being able to choose the food I eat or walk up the stairs. I am grateful that God made me the way he did…in my case, it is much more valuable for life in Congo that I don’t have food allergies than that my body were thin or beautiful. The nudge to be grateful as well as the openness about body image in Congo has enriched my sense of who I am as a creation and daughter of God. In spite all of my faults, sin, and stumbling, I know that I have nothing to be ashamed of.5) What word of wisdom or encouragement would you offer other people on a similar journey?
Reiterating what I have learned to appreciate about Congolese culture, take a risk with being open and honest –with yourself, with others, and with God. And be grateful … for whatever your body looks like and the way God created you to interact with the world.
What about you?
Have your own answers to these questions? Why not share them? Email your responses and a recent picture to bodytheologyblog at gmail dot com. You can also post anonymously if you wish.
Guest Post Series: Five Questions on…Exercise (with Eric)
Exercise
with Eric Hall
1) Describe your relationship to/experience with exercise. If it has changed over time, describe the change.
I started exercising when I was a sophomore in high school. I think I mainly started to become more attractive to women and to feel better about my physical appearance. My exercise habits have changed over time depending on how busy I have been. In 2007 I exercised for around 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. In 2009 I ran 7 days a week. I still exercise but it usually last around 1 hour each time and it happens around 3 times a week.2) How has that relationship/experience affected the way you think about your body and/or your self-image?
It has helped my self-confidence when it comes to my looks. I have had compliments about my muscles. That always makes me feel good. Right now I am still in pretty good shape but I am very aware of unwanted fat on my body. At times that fat makes me feel less secure about my appearance (I know this is unhealthy).3) How has that relationship/experience affected the way you relate to others?
It has given me conversations with others that exercise. I know to some girls it has made me more attractive. At least from their comments that is what it sounded like. It has also taken me away from spending more time with people (I will talk about this more in questions 4).4) How has that relationship/experience affected your spiritual life?
At times my exercising habits have become an obsession. I refused to spend time with others because I HAD to get my exercise routine done. I, one time, made my family wait an hour after they had driven 6 hours to come see me because I HAD to exercise. This was extremely unloving and very selfish. This was a sin, so obsession with exercise negativity affected my spiritual life. But…I do believe that as a follower of Christ I am to be a holistic person. This means I should try and be as healthy as I can be spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I do believe it honors the gift that God gave us, our bodies, when we exercise. But as I mentioned, exercise can sometimes become an obsession, which is unhealthy and sinful.5) What word of wisdom or encouragement would you offer other people on a similar journey?
Exercise, but within reason. Don’t let it become an obsession. I do believe that it can be a way to honor God, which is great. I also do not believe that it is wrong to also do it to make yourself more attractive to yourself and others.
What about you?
Have your own answers to these questions? Why not share them? Email your responses and a recent picture to bodytheologyblog at gmail dot com. You can also post anonymously if you wish.
Guest Post Series: Five Questions on…Dating/Singleness (with Anonymous Girl)
Dating/Singleness
with Anonymous Girl
The post below is a deeply vulnerable and honest response to the five questions. Because it is a little longer, I included an excerpt here with a link to the remaining questions. You won’t want to miss the end!
1) Describe your relationship to/experience with dating/singleness. If it has changed over time, describe the change.
In high school, I fell in with the “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and “True Love Waits” crowd, of my own volition. I dated a boy for 6 months, but we never kissed. (Years later, he came out as gay, but that wasn’t a shock.) In college, my idea was that I wanted to be friends with a guy before I started dating him. I had serious crushes on a few guys, but they never seemed interested in me, and I wasn’t too concerned about dating. Dating was only for when you were actually interested in getting married and had time to invest in such a relationship, and I knew I wasn’t ready for that in college. Post college, my time opened up dramatically, and I was really mad at God that I wasn’t dating anyone. I thought that was a perfect time to meet someone, date them, and then get married. Nothing else in my life was working, so couldn’t God at least throw me a bone on that front and let me meet my husband?! I went through some serious depression (due to a lot of issues), and eventually started my life moving in a better direction, with more hope. Still no one worth dating came across my path. From time to time, someone VERY interesting to me would appear, reminding me that somewhere out there, there IS someone interesting whom I will meet and marry, at least I hoped so! At 25, I moved to California and developed a huge crush on a new acquaintance. Who two months later started dating my polar-opposite roommate. And two months after that, they were engaged. I was hurt and disillusioned, figuring that I obviously didn’t have a clue what kind of man could ever be interested in me. Since then, my perspective on God, on life, and on love has changed drastically. This helped me to understand better what kind of a man I’m looking for, and that someone who previously I wasn’t interested in could actually fit me well. I tried eHarmony for 4 months and was bitter and angry that none of the men I was interested in messaged me back, and only men I was clearly NOT interested in messaged me. A year and a half later, I tried another 4-month stint on eHarmony with a much more open mind. If the profile interested me at all, I initiated conversation, and anyone who messaged me I replied to, even if I wasn’t the least bit interested in them. I at least got one coffee date out of it, but nothing more. At 28, I had my first kiss with a man who was a friend of mine, and I FREAKED OUT. We remained friends, and 6 months after the kiss, we finally talked about it, and realized that maybe there was something real between us. I dove head first into that relationship, learning a lot about how relationships work (it was my first since high school, barring a few looking-back-that-was-a-date dates). But just a few weeks in, he got a new job in a city 6 hours away and we knew that was a closed door. It was definitely the right decision. I know we could have made a relationship work, but it would have been a LOT of work, and we probably aren’t the best complement to each other. But I learned a lot about myself, and had a lot more confidence in myself that I was actually attractive to someone, and that I could actually be a good girlfriend to someone! And then, 6 months after that, I started dating a very good friend of mine. We had been pseudo-dating for 6 months, spending a lot of 1-on-1 time together, doing somewhat romantic things. Most of the time we were hanging out, I looked around and realized that anyone who was watching us would think we were on a date, but we weren’t. He finally asked me on a “date date”, and I was thrilled. I really liked him, and was excited that something that felt so natural and started with the foundation of a close friendship was actually panning out into a real dating relationship! I was so excited, I told my 20 closest friends. I had a LOT of confidence in the relationship because we already knew each other so well. I knew he was a keeper because it would take us at least to the 6-month mark to learn something about each other or the relationship that we didn’t already know. We even talked about how awesome it was that we started out as such good friends and that was the perfect foundation to build a future together. A few weeks into the relationship, he asked if I wanted us to be a “couple”, which I readily agreed to. One week after that, he said he “wasn’t feeling the romance of the relationship”. I was floored, and we haven’t really spoken since. He was kind about it, but I’m still very confused why, if he wasn’t actually attracted to me romantically, he asked me out to begin with. That was several months ago, and while I miss his friendship and the time we spent hanging out, I don’t really miss him. That’s probably a sign that maybe we weren’t right for each other, anyway, but knowing that doesn’t make me any less lonely. I think the hardest part is that in my life, I have some professional ambition, but the only thing I KNOW I want out of life is to be a wife and mother. When everything else is confusing, it is really easy to focus on that one aspect of my life, and blame God for my being single. I don’t necessarily regret the freedom I’ve had, nor do I want to trade places with my friends who are already mothers. I just wish I were a step or two closer to that being my own reality. I’ve had seasons where I’m very content being single – having the freedom to drop everything and go out of town for the weekend, or extend a business trip for a few days of vacation. But there are other seasons where all I can think about is finding my husband. I scan the pews at church, looking for cute men of an appropriate age, then checking out their left hands and being disappointed that “all the good men have been snatched up!” So I don’t really know what to do about all that, except trying to keep an open mind, a grateful heart, and a full schedule so I don’t sit at home and mope about how lonely I am. 🙂2) How has that relationship/experience affected the way you think about your body and/or your self-image?
I’ve never been an overly girly-girl, probably as a reaction to the fact that I’ve never been the “hot” or “cute” girl, and being 5’9″ and 200 pounds, I’m bigger than average. I’m usually okay with that, I am just acknowledging that it takes a certain kind of man to find someone with my body shape and size attractive. I don’t believe I’m ugly, I’ve just come to terms with the reality that I’m not a stunner, either, and that looks do matter to men, to probably a greater extent than they do to me. (Just about any man in the -2/+10 year range who is 6’3″ or taller is attractive in my book!) I had a season in the post-college stage where I thought my gender was invisible. Read the rest of this entryRohr on silence in a culture of noise
We live in a noisy world.
We surround ourselves with entertainment and news and music and talking and texting and constant accessibility to internet. We immerse ourselves in the many messages we hear from culture, family, church, school, and work. We are loud and wordy and flashy and full of so much swirling around that it often feels impossible to shhhhhhh… into a place of quiet, stillness, and rest.
Richard Rohr writes about the place of silence in this excerpt below from his recent article “Finding God in the Depths of Silence” in Sojourners (March 2013):
At the less mature levels, religion is mostly noise, entertainment, and words. Catholics and Orthodox Christians prefer theater and wordy symbols; Protestants prefer music and endless sermons.
Probably more than ever, because of iPads, cell phones, billboards, TVs, and iPods, we are a toxically overstimulated people. Only time will tell the deep effects of this on emotional maturity, relationship, communication, conversation, and religion itself. Silence now seems like a luxury, but it is not so much a luxury as it is a choice and decision at the heart of every spiritual discipline and growth. Without it, most liturgies, Bible studies, devotions, “holy” practices, sermons, and religious conversations might be good and fine, but they will never be truly great or life-changing — for ourselves or for others. They can only represent the surface; God is always found at the depths, even the depths of our sin and brokenness. And in the depths, it is silent.
Thoughts? Comments? Reactions? Share in the comment box below.
Guest Post Series: Five Questions on…Exercise (with Megan)
Exercise
with Megan Gahan
1) Describe your relationship to/experience with exercise. If it has changed over time, describe the change.
I started out working in gyms, where I trained women of all ages and abilities. Everything was very focused on pounds lost and inches trimmed. My clients would stare at themselves in the mirror, pinching ‘fat’(actually skin) and moaning about their need to lose 20 or more pounds. I remember being stunned at how disconnected they were with their bodies. Losing 20 pounds would have put many of them in the underweight range. Not surprisingly, I critiqued myself harshly during those years. Clients often choose their personal trainer based primarily on appearance, not qualifications (kind of like how you wouldn’t choose a hairdresser whose hair you didn’t like). I would emotionally tear myself apart when the buffest and fittest trainer got chosen over me again. It made me feel very inadequate. My relationship with exercise was one of necessity. But I wanted so much more. I wanted to help women see themselves and dig into their emotional issues. I wanted to talk to them about self-worth and body image and Jesus’ view of His precious daughters– not just perfect push-up technique (which, incidentally, is also very important). Eventually God led me to a position with Mercy Ministries, a residential faith-based program for young women wanting to overcome life-controlling issues: eating disorders, self-harm, addiction, and abuse. I ran the fitness department and delighted in putting together a well-rounded fitness curriculum. One that incorporated the physical, emotional, and spiritual elements of exercise. My relationship with exercise changed as I worked with the young women in the program. I began to show myself more grace. I started giving thanks to God before my workouts. I was grateful for my body’s abilities and capacity. I also asked God to keep my mind free from comparisons and harsh self-criticism. I wanted my workout to be an offering to Him. That’s what it’s meant to be.2) How has that relationship/experience affected the way you think about your body and/or your self-image?
Working with women who struggled deeply with their body image forced me to be very conscientious of my own. I became aware of how often I allowed negative self-talk to narrate my day-to-day life. I began calling myself out on it, because I needed to walk the talk. In modeling a healthy example for the girls, I also stopped working out for the wrong reasons. If I was having a bad day, or I felt fat, or I felt I needed to work out because I had just inhaled a Costco sized bag in Mini Eggs, I didn’t compulsively reach for my cross trainers. I went to God first. He became my first line of defense, my healthy coping mechanism. I am the first to admit that fitness is a great stress release. But it shouldn’t be your only one. It definitely isn’t the most essential one. My relationship with my body took another turn when I wrote A Love Letter to My Body, where I confronted all the dark, ugly words I had spoken over myself throughout the years. It was extremely difficult, but deep wounds began to heal as my fingers flew over the keyboard. I knew I was much closer to seeing myself as my Creator saw me.3) How has that relationship/experience affected the way you relate to others?
I will not tolerate ‘fat talk’ in any conversation – not from myself or my friends. I address it right away because I know how damaging it is.4) How has that relationship/experience affected your spiritual life?
I used to speak such hate over my body that God couldn’t get a word in edgewise. When I finally allowed His still voice to speak love and beauty over me, it changed my spiritual life drastically. I wasn’t calling God a liar anymore. I wasn’t calling his workmanship junk. It’s hard to have a relationship with the One who created you, a relationship built on trust and gratitude, when you’re railing against Him for making your thighs too big.5) What word of wisdom or encouragement would you offer other people on a similar journey?
Don’t hold yourself to a standard that doesn’t exist. If you feel like you have to work out, or you feel guilty when you don’t exercise, that’s a flashing neon sign that you’re headed down a dangerous path. It’s very easy to slip into obsession with fitness and pass it off as ‘getting healthy’ in this day and age. They are not the same thing. For those wanting to begin creating a better relationship with their body, I would highly recommend writing a letter to yours. It is the most transformative exercise I have ever done. After I wrote mine, hundreds of women joined me. To read through some of their journeys, go to www.shelovesmagazine.com and click ‘A Love Letter to My Body’ at the top right hand side of the page.
What about you?
Have your own answers to these questions? Why not share them? Email your responses and a recent picture to bodytheologyblog at gmail dot com. You can also post anonymously if you wish.
Guest Post Series: Five Questions on…Cultures (with Matthew)
Cultures
with Matthew Knowles
1) Describe your experience in other cultures and the attitude toward/relationship to body image you observed there.
2) How has that relationship/attitude affected the way you think about your body and/or your self-image?
I like being tall, but I hate when a billion Chinese people call me tall everyday.3) How has that relationship/attitude affected the way you relate to others?
I get annoyed more easily because I’m tired of hearing the same words out of everyone’s mouth.4) How has that relationship/attitude affected your spiritual life?
It’s made me frustrated more, depressed some, angry often, and overall pulled me away from God.5) What word of wisdom or encouragement would you offer other people on a similar journey?
I need the encouragement! … But really, have anchors in your life. Get out and refuel when needed. Iron sharpens iron.
What about you?
Have your own answers to these questions? Why not share them? Email your responses and a recent picture to bodytheologyblog at gmail dot com. You can also post anonymously if you wish.
Holistic Body Theology 