Finding God's Blessing When Your Body Feels Broken
“Aw, are you expecting again?” An acquaintance asked me as I held my one year old on my hip at a friend’s outdoor party.
This picture was taken around the same time. I was always trying to find shits that didn’t elicit the pregnant question!
I wasn’t surprised. This was a regular occurence for me. After having two babies and suffering a major case of diastasis recti which made my stomach protrude, I had moved from anger to sympathy in response. I would politely answer “no,” and then try to comfort them in their subsequent embarrassment.
I had also moved from anger to sympathy in response to my own body, which is why I could respond in kind.
At first, I was angry that I had all these postpartum issues when I felt like I “did everything right” as a concerned mom of a growing baby and fitness professional, while other friends could just bounce right back, tummy and all. At least, that’s what it seems.
Under the surface, we all have our own battles.
Your battle might be extra weight you’re desperate to lose, the wrinkles you want to smooth, the injury that just won’t get better.
You know it’s not supposed to be this way, and you’re right!
Jesus Blesses, Breaks, and Becomes
Jesus came not to condemn the world, but to save it through Him (John 3:17).
Jesus came into the world not to put you down and demand you try harder with that diet, or tisk-tisk you for skipping the SPF, or get yourself into the fountain of youth with an injured body.
He knows life is hard. He’s lived it for Himself. And throughout His life, He shows us flashes of impending redemption through miracles, miracles such as these:
“And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.” Luke 9:16
“Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’” - Matthew 26:26
Most of us know these two examples from the Bible—Jesus feeds the five thousand with a meager portion and gives His disciples communion during the Last Supper. We know Jesus broke the bread and it multiplied for physical nourishment, and then He gave His own body and blood for spiritual nourishment.
But did you notice that Jesus first blesses the bread?
Jesus blesses the bread because He knows the bread, along with all things, belong to His Father and His Father has been please to give us the whole Kingdom. Before something amazing happens, He gives thanks.
Jesus blesses, then breaks.
He is demonstrating this verse in action: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
Look at how much comes from ordinary loaves of bread. If God can do that with food, He can do things much more wonderful with us, too.
Jesus blesses, breaks, and becomes.
By blessing and breaking the bread and witnesses testifying to the miracle of the multitude being fed, Jesus becomes the bread of life. He cares about our body’s physical needs.
Jesus doesn’t just break loaves out of love. He allows Himself to be broken.
By blessing and breaking the bread before His disciples, He becomes our spiritual bread forever.
Go Back and Find the Body Blessing in Brokenness
Focus on what feels broken. Now go back and find the blessing.
For the postpartum women who wishes she had a smaller tummy and tight skin, she can find the blessing in her child standing before her. The blessing of her child becomes greater than the brokenness of her body.
I mean, honestly. Who cares about looking at a little tummy pooch when you can look at this cutie?
For the woman who buys all the anti-aging serums on the shelf, she can find the blessing in her skin by providing proof of all the years of life she has had, and the eternal future ahead of her. The blessing of her past and hope in Christ for tomorrow becomes greater than the brokenness of her body.
For the woman who feels like she is always getting sick or injured, she can find blessing in her ailments by focusing on the fully redeemed sprit she already has in Christ. The blessing of her salvation becomes greater than the brokenness of her body.
No matter what you “ugh” is with your body, let me leave you with some practical steps to walk through when you feel broken down, as outlined in our Body Blessings Journal:
1. Get Honest: The first step in letting God use your brokenness for a blessing is to be honest about where it hurts and bring it to the Great Physician. Pray all your anxious thoughts out to Him, wait for a response from Scripture, and write that down too.
2. Give Thanks: Give thanks not only for your body (when in doubt, give thanks you are alive), but for how Jesus lived in His body, and for the body of Christ.
3. Give Praise: Let the miracle happen here. Once you have given your pain in brokenness to God and let Him fill you up with thanksgiving, now you are able to return the praise by moving in joyful obedience. He will multiply every small act of great love.
Become the Blessing
For all of us, we can find the blessing in our bodies by knowing that in Christ, out of death comes life, out of our suffering comes joy, and out of our weakness comes strength.
We don’t have to cover up our flaws or penalize ourselves with strict regimens, but live in the grace of what God has already done, in the body He has already given!
As Ann Voskamp says in her book The Broken Way, “You are the most loved not when you’re pretending to have it all together; you are actually the most loved when you feel broken and falling apart.”
We can find comfort in knowing that our bodies are not perfect now, and they aren’t supposed to be.
We can find communion with the groanings of the whole creation, as we wait patiently for the redemption of our bodies.
We can secure our hope in this promise because Jesus has already done it, and Jesus is coming back to do it again.
May you be blessed, my friends, and be a blessing!
