Love Scarred

Looking down at the stretch-marked covered folds of my abdomen, I decided it was time for a change. This body had been my home for over 34 years. It had carried the lives of seven babies, six of them to full term. It had nursed five children, run in 5 Bloomsday races, walked countless miles and even endured backcountry hiking trips. It had learned to swim and ice skate and even do it's best at yoga. It had been giving a home to my soul for decades, and more importantly, it had been a place for the very God of the universe to make his home. Yet what thanks had I offered for this frame of mine?

More often than not I had berated it. I had judged it for being too skinny in the legs and too fat in the middle. I had scorned it's blemishes, comparing it to some imagined ideal of beauty and finding it wanting. I had been given a gift of a home for my spirit, a place to dwell in the universe, and I had answered that gift with complaining. Why didn't I have smooth hair that I knew how to style luxuriously? Why did I have so many "polka-dots" on my face? (as the preschooler had put it). Why did I have this insatiable desire to eat pastries and snuggle up on the couch watching tv, which led to my less than athletic physique?

Well I had a revelation that day staring at my naked self. I had an encounter with the Lord that arrested my dissatisfaction (at best) and disgust (at worst). I didn't think about it then, but it strikes me now that it is linked to another body. There was another human who had a body for home so he could walk this earth. His body was broken, scarred and torn. His body was beaten and cast down so that mine doesn't have to be. 

The Lord is re-writing my story. He is transforming my scenery, upgrading the protagonist. He is causing me to look upon myself and see someone that is worthy of his suffering, his life laid down.

I invite you to join me on this journey of finding the ridiculous, over-the-top, love of Jesus. It extends to the ends of the earth, even to flabby middles and hearts darkened with the deception of self loathing. He is found there. His love can not be shaken. It never fails.