Tag: Body image

This is My Body

Published on by Marilyn5 Comments

This is My Body by Robynn

Though they may be out there, I have never met a woman who is not consumed with food, and body image. There are those who are clinically diagnosed with eating disorders but all of us are to some degree disordered in our relationship to food and to our bodies. It started, of course, in the garden with Eve and the fruit. It was food and it spoke to her. Granted the fruit didn’t actually talk, but her soul’s enemy spoke to her and the message was mixed in with the food. Temptation with a spiritual marinade, a dipping sauce, a glaze.  Ever since then we’ve battled burgers and burritos; biscuits and beans. Our fight with food has been handed down to us through a long line of mothers.

I am no exception. I’ve wrestled food since I hit puberty. It’s a love-hate relationship. I love to eat. I hate how food gathers and stays on my body. I love the taste and smells of food; the texture, the flavours. I hate the pull and power of food. My history with food includes unseemly weight gain with entering and reentering cultures, with culture shock and stress.

Lately my body has been out of whack. My metabolism is on strike. My ability to burn calories seems to be deterred by fatigue and hormonal changes. I’ve never loved exercising. I love people. I’ll go for a walk if a friend will go with me. But a walk just for a walk’s sake seems like a waste of time. I don’t enjoy it. Now I can hardly eat anything and the weight still seems to creep on. It’s depressing. It’s disheartening.

Last week I was praying again for grace in this…. I don’t want to obsess about it. I don’t want to become consumed with myself, with food, with my body or with my feelings about my body. I was trying to release all that again up to Jesus who understands about bodies. He chose to be bodied, to take on flesh, to become a person. He came for our souls and for our bodies. He healed the lame, gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Jesus healed diseased bodies, broken bodies, bleeding bodies. He touched bodies that no one else would touch. He associated with bodies that others avoided.

As I was praying for my body and my emotions about it…these words came to mind. “This is your body.” It seemed a divine pronouncement over me, over my agonies, over my physical frame. I repeated it slowly, out loud, “This is my body. This is my body.” I felt somehow it was a remedy for my conflicted distorted soul stuck in this conflicted distorted body. This is my body. I’ve been chewing this over and over. It keeps coming to mind. As the negative thoughts come, this thought has dropped like a sweet warm blanket to cover the ugliness of my beliefs. This is my body.

At the last meal that Jesus shared with his friends he tried again to explain to them that he was about to be executed, that he would die, that he would come back to life. It was a mystery to them. They couldn’t understand it. Using what was right in front of him (the food!), Jesus, picked up the bread, and he broke off a chunk. This was a metaphor they could figure out. It was the language of survival and comfort. It was memory and mystery. It was bread. “This is my body,” he said, “Broken for you. Take it. Eat it.”

Jesus wasn’t just giving them a cute expression, a fun phrase, or a clever speech. When Jesus says, “This is my body, broken for you,” it’s significant. His broken body—his sacrifice—has the capacity to redeem me. All of me. My body. My relationship with food. All of it. His body restores my body. He offers us his broken body for our consumption. We are invited to, “take and eat”. We consume Jesus and we are satisfied. That alone means something for my food issues and my body issues and my brokenness.

In that moment at that last meal when Jesus proclaimed, “This is my body, broken for you,” it makes me wonder if in some sense Jesus himself had to come to grips with his own body and its impending brokenness. He was about to endure the profound breaking of his own body. He leans into it and he accepts it. That has implications for me accepting my own body and my own brokenness.

This holy truth, with its layers and layers of implication and revelation, has been slowly seeping into my soul this week. This IS my body. It’s the body I’ve been given. It’s no surprise to my Creator that my metabolism is malfunctioning. He’s not shocked by my disdain for exercise. He’s not horrified by longings for a piece of cake or a handful of snack mix. He actually loves me completely. From the freckles on my arms to the hair that’s coming in grey and wiry; from my ingrown toenails to my one short thumb; from the ski-sloped nose to my varicose veins…all of it designed and delighted in by my Potter, my Maker.

And it’s broken. Broken because of the Fall. Broken in childbirth for my children. Broken in India for the sake of my calling. Broken in aging. Broken in natural deterioration. Broken here for my holy now. Broken for Jesus.

We follow in his example. We mimic our model. We saw him lay down his body for the sake of his friends and so we lay down our lives for the sake of ours. It’s our way of participating in the redemption of others. We give ourselves up. We give ourselves over. And we experience that brokenness for the sake of others. Our bodies become a type of sacrifice, living and holy.

Part of the mystery includes offering to Jesus our brokenness. Our Catholic brothers and sisters understand this. When they write about suffering some of the first words out of their mouth are almost always that we get to give our suffering as an offering to Jesus. There’s certainly no sense that Jesus takes and eats us. He doesn’t consume us or use us up.  But we do get to offer up our broken bodies to him, our broken and stale bread, our broken and moldy connection to food.

That is a spiritual reality made present and tangible in our physicality. Hurting, aching, bearing, enduring, suffering. All in our bodies. St Paul wrote that he was glad to suffer, for his friends, in his body…somehow he knew he was participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for Jesus’ body, the church. Paul understood that suffering bears fruit. He was “willing to endure anything” –and as preposterous as it sounds–he even considered it a privilege, a divine opportunity, if it would result in the rescue of another or in glory going to God.

This is my body, a holy temple filled with his Holy Spirit presence. Broken it may be. Damaged. Wounded. Lumpy. Chicken pock-marked. But there is a mystery at work in my members. And I give myself up to be consumed by others. I get to participate in that redemption-rescue mission work, where bread is broken and wine is poured.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Rom 12:1-2)

(Col 1:24, 2 Tim 2:10, Phil 1:29)

Related articles

Altering Body and Soul – A Guest Post

Published on by Marilyn7 Comments

Blogger’s Note: Daily as I take the subway home I  see a little boy with brown-rimmed glasses walking with an older woman. He seems tiny for his age, oblivious to the adults around him, much the same as other children. The thing that distinguishes this child from others is the tube that comes out from under his shirt, stretching around his tiny tummy to his back and attached to a quart-sized bag. The bag usually has a bit of greenish brown liquid in it. I don’t know him, and I don’t know his situation but I do know that he is already living life differently than his peers. He lives with an altered body.

He is not alone — this essay by my cousin Janice Klingberg takes us into her world of living with an altered body.

More than 35 years ago, I made an irreversible decision that was to impact my life more than I really knew at the time.

I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the age of 15 but tried to participate in school and other activities as a normal teenager despite the physical discomfort and perpetual worry about accidents. Living through my teens and into my 20s was challenging, but I was relatively good, I thought, at hiding the impact of my illness.

I was grateful that in so many ways my life took an ordinary path—college, teaching career, marriage and children. Despite this, after our younger son was born in 1974 my colitis went wild, in part because of uncertainty about his health. I couldn’t ignore this exacerbation or my new understanding that years more with the chronic condition would make me more vulnerable to malignancies—read that, cancer of the colon. Years earlier, though advised that I might want to consider surgical removal of the colon (total colectomy), I was not emotionally ready to take that major step. By 1975 I was almost relieved when I made the decision to move forward with the surgery and live the rest of my life with an ileostomy—an opening (stoma) on my abdomen through which feces is diverted.

After my recovery and with the loving support of my husband, I was determined to continue living well, but this time without pain or anxiety about toilet facilities. I’ve had to deal with other issues related to my redirected plumbing, but overall, I have been a much healthier person than I ever was before my initial surgery.

I have now lived with an ileostomy longer than I lived without one, and though it’s part of who I am, it does not define me. I have shared my journey with others facing the surgery in the same way people helped me wrap my brain around its long-term impact.

One of those individuals, a young woman my age, helped rid me of fears that I wouldn’t be able wear attractive clothing again and  suggested lifestyle changes that would make it easier for me to live with an ileostomy, something that was daunting for a 30-year-old.

Surgery where the body is altered has life-changing potential.

There were unexpected and positive side effects. The entire experience helped to refine my vocational direction– I knew that I wanted to be involved in something that would make life better for others and add meaning to my own life. Stewardship of my God-given skills and talents became even more important to me, so I plunged into the nonprofit communications and fundraising arena. Many dedicated professionals challenged and energized me over the years as we worked together to improve the quality of life for thousands of people.

However imperfectly I contributed to those efforts, I am grateful to have had many opportunities to be part of something bigger than myself; something that brings satisfaction and meaning to my soul.

We live in a world where body image is often skewed and the temptation to define ourselves based on our physical features is strong. As I look back I am grateful to be able to bear witness that life has gone on—indeed, even improved and become more meaningful—after the initial shock of waking up from surgery with my altered body.


Author Bio: Jan Klingberg is a newly retired communications and fundraising professional who has worked for a variety of nonprofit organizations, such as homeless services, community mental health, downtown redevelopment, and hospice. A New Englander by birth and until the late 1980s, she is now happily at home in Evanston, Illinois where she lives with her husband, Don, a retired university professor.

Note: Robynn Allyn who has begun posting every Friday is on vacation today so Fridays with Robynn will continue next week!

Related articles

On What Planet is This Women’s Health?

Published on by Marilyn15 Comments

The magazine caught my eye – it had bright colors and screaming headlines, plus beautiful Kate Beckinsale was on the cover. And then I realized it was about Women’s Health.

I work in Women’s Health. Daily I present, write, research and talk to women about health; specifically breast, cervical, colorectal and cardiovascular health.

I know health. I know illness.  And the magazine cover below is not health. It’s a poor imitation and false representation of health. 

If we are to believe this magazine then health is about resizing our thighs; getting bikini-ready; having low-cal cocktails; getting gorgeous skin and hot, hotter, hottest sex.

Oh – I forgot the most important – “scoring” a body like Kate Beckinsale.

Look back on previous issues and I’m told I can “sculpt a butt that defies gravity”, melt fat and shrink my belly.

On what planet is this women’s health? In what universe?  

At least a magazine like Cosmo is honest, you know exactly what you’re getting. But Women’s Health? This is not women’s health. This is a false depiction of health spiced up with great graphics and loud promises.

In fairness, inside the magazine may be some valuable advice, but having to go through a misleading and inaccurate cover makes it not worth the trouble.

Health is physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being and has little to do with being bikini-ready or great cocktails. Health is knowing who you are and accepting that person. Health is preserving wellness and preventing illness. Health includes our values and knowledge, taking them into account throughout the life span. Health is knowing what diseases are specific to women, how they may manifest and what we can do about that. Health is about risk factors and screening to make sure we catch problems early when better outcomes are assured.

Health is sitting on the porch drinking healthy smoothies with your kids; laughing until your tummy aches; resting in the life that God has given you.

Health is knowing that our bodies won’t last forever no matter how nipped and tucked we make them; health is understanding that our souls last.

So next time you think about women’s health, think about the real thing, not the false image.

RELATED ARTICLES