Jennifer Wallace
“Your body is mine! Your body is mine!” I hear my son singing a song that sounds…well inappropriate
for a five-year-old or anyone to be singing. I ask him about it and he tells me he made it up. “And where did you hear this? Where did you get the idea?” I ask concerned about what I might hear for an answer.
“You, mom!” “What?!” I respond. “…‘Member when you told us that everyone in the family thinks your body is theirs?” I do remember and it is all making sense now.
I was laughing and slightly exasperated one day in the kitchen as I was squatting to get something in a low cupboard and the pups were trying to get on me. I had my share that day and week of being crawled on by my boy when trying to eat breakfast, being interrupted on the toilet by both kids… and so I exclaimed, “Everyone in this family thinks my body is theirs!”
I have been having a conversation about this for some time now in my brain. And this is not the first time. During my three pregnancies, I experienced many changes out of my control that happened in and with my body. The miracle of birth can make fairly public a woman’s body, as well. No woman is ever quite the same after housing a baby. I have always known our bodies can do amazing and good things.
I was taught as a child that our bodies are sacred:
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 New International Reader’s Version (NIRV)
19 Don’t you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is in you, and you have received the Spirit from God. You do not belong to yourselves. 20 Christ has paid the price for you. So use your bodies in a way that honors God.
So much has been said and written about our bodies. Daily we are confronted with images telling us about our bodies. People have fought for protection, rights, and freedom of our bodies. Poets to politicians have covered our bodies.
What are our bodies really for? Are we here to merely “…eat and drink and find satisfaction in [our] work?” (Ecclesiastes 2:24) And yet, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in [our] hearts; yet [we] cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
I often think about this body talk when I think about Jesus sitting around with His followers during Passover bringing up His body and blood while they were eating. (Matthew 26:26) That would have been quite disconcerting and not at all appetizing. What was His meaning?
I love what Paul said in Colossians 1:15-22, 28:
“He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created….all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. ….For God was pleased to have His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile Himself to all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross….now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation… We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.”
There is more to this passage. This is only a glimpse. But what a powerful glimpse. We were created for Him! We are created for reconciliation, for peace, for perfection. My mind reels a bit at the thought.
I am back listening to my son, “Your body is mine! Your body is mine” and I am thinking, “Jesus’ body is mine! My body is the embodiment of Jesus?” Right now, my son loves that I am here for him. Right now, I am the hands and feet of Jesus in my home, my workplace, my church. And He is mine. That doesn’t mean that I still wouldn’t mind some privacy when I am in the bathroom…but I know my body, stretch marks and all, have a deep purpose. And so I listen and I hear another song my son has been singing lately. This is not one that he composed, but one he heard and is repeating, “Hands up, baby hands up! Gimme your heart, gimme, gimme, your heart gimme.” Well that might be a whole other article.