1001 Gifts: My Body
Okay, this isn’t a post I ever thought I’d be writing, since you and I have been at war since my teens, but O Body given to me, I am grateful to you.
I am grateful for your sturdy health, for how you rarely let me down, despite the fact I so carelessly neglect you. I am grateful you’ve only led me to hospital with pregnancies, and then let me out again in 24 hours.
I am grateful for how you affect my mind. How I can run, or do yoga, or run in place or lift some weights, and am so quickly a different person, more energized, more clear-thinking, optimistic.
I love the fact that when I work with you in the garden, we find peace.
I love the way that you are my early warning system. You tell me, in my gut, when I am stressed and uncomfortable before I consciously know it. In fact, I cannot even pray well unless you are comfortable.
You tell me when I am sad before my mind catches on. And then, you and I, we can run to exorcise sadness with exercise.
And what high spirits you have the power to release, when you and I run together trying to outwit the tennis ball machine, or slam the tennis ball, or play table tennis.
I was foolish, oh body. I hated games, I hated walks, I hated exercise. What joys I have missed in my bookish sedentary life.
But, with luck, oh body, if I look after you, and you look after me, we might still have have another 50 years together. And many more Thanksgivings. And believe me, I fully intend to look after you.
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@ Jen “focus on those very small habits that are your enemy, not the big picture, maybe?”
That's brilliant. I need to think through and analyse these bad habits. The elevator rather than the stairs; asking someone to bring something to my study rather than going down and getting it, cake for comfort and to relax. Wow, I need to analyse the small habits which are my enemy, and that's how I might be able to deal with the big picture. Just as the big picture is made up of a hundred bad habits, it can be reversed by reversing the hundred bad habits. Wow!
That's a very helpful idea, Jen, thanks.
Love this! Was visiting a sports-medicine type woman the other day to get help with my neck & back problems, which give me constant pain since a minor car accident a little over a year ago. Part of my problem was that I was already weak before the accident, and it just exacerbated it all.
So, the woman told me that our bodies have histories, just like the other parts of us (mental, emotional, spiritual…), and I didn't get to where I am overnight. To pay attention to my small habits, like sloppy posture, and that those small habits, when corrected, will make an enormous difference. She left me with the tiniest assignment, that I thought silly (a very slight pelvic squeeze/tilt to adjust my stance), but it's helping!
The application for you, I guess, is to focus on those very small habits that are your enemy, not the big picture, maybe? My body issues are different from yours, but probably have the same root!
I am trying to learn to love my body. It is a gift from my Creator. Fearfully and wonderfully made and not to be criticized.