Love Your Body

“Love your body" is a phrase that has truth to it in a very crucial way. But like most things pure and good in this world, the enemy has taken it and twisted it. We now use that phrase as a way to live in a state of complacency. We make excuses for our physical state while our bodies are crying our for attention.

When I first embarked on the struggle of "loving my body" it meant embracing the way it was as a sacrifice of motherhood. Meanwhile I ignored the way my clothes weren't fitting right, my joints were aching in new ways. And what I didn't know until months later, certain blood work levels were rising. The truth was, I did love my body (even though I didn't love how it looked or felt). This body grew and fed three beautiful children. It has never failed me. The problem was, I wasn't showing that love. I started to hide and further ignore what only I was doing to the body I claimed to love.

This is a toxic kind of love. The one you say with your mouth without meaning in your heart. You say it because you think you're supposed to but when it comes times to put that love into action you fall short.

If someone you truly loved was in trouble, crying out for help, you wouldn't stand by and say to them "its okay, I love you." That is about as helpful as standing in your aching body with high levels of insulin proclaiming "I love my body!"

There is another kind of love out there. A kind we are shown every second of the day. Agape love is the love God teaches us. It is a forgiving and embracing love. But it does not sit idly by when you're in need. While the toxic love is self-pleasing, this kind of love is a self-sacrificing.

How do we connect that to the body? Sacrifice your gluttony and practice self-denile instead. Sacrifice your comfort for exercise instead. Sacrifice your time and pour it into the temple of a body God gave you.

Or do you not know that

your body is the temple of

the Holy Spirit who is in you,

whom you have from God,

and you are not your own?

For you were bought at a

price; therefore glorify God in

your body and in your spirit,

which are God's.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Mary carried Jesus in her body for the glory of God. And we honor her for that as the new Ark of the Covenant. If you receive Jesus in the blessed sacrament you also carry Jesus in your body. You are a living, walking, breathing tabernacle and you walk out of that church renewed.

Give God your yes the same way Mary did and offer your body as a temple for God to dwell within. Love it and honor it in that way.

This new year let's rediscover how to love our bodies in way God intended.