The body changes.  I learned this early in life, thanks to a healthy combination of sex-ed classes, skin care commercials, and over-the-hill birthday cards portraying hot-flashing women with breasts down to their knees.  At puberty we develop sexually, at middle age we fight wrinkles until we finally give up, and soon after we go through menopause.  Three simple phases.  Boom, boom, boom.  I got it.

Or I thought I did.  Now that my body is starting to raise its opinionated little voice, I find myself in awe of the mechanism that it is.  My whole life I’ve been told that my body is a temple, but for the first time I feel real reverence for the structure that stores my soul.  Because I am forced to take responsibility for my body, I’m discovering that respect for my body goes hand-in-hand with respect for the God who designed it.

The Temple

Remind me that You live here,
that You designed this body
as a place for us to meet,
an instrument to serve You,
a vessel through which I explore
and experience
Your diverse creation.

Teach me to revere it as You do,
to protect and honor it,
to forgive it when necessary.
Like me, it is changing,
and like me,
it is Yours.

- Abigail Wurdeman

IF YOU LIKE THIS STORY & PRAYER, YOU'LL LOVE ANYTHING GOES!