Your Body is Wasting Away

well. it is happening. I am getting varicose veins. At first I thought I had a weird bruise on my leg... and then it wasn't going away. It took until the fifth pregnancy to get them. I read this today: "they tend to get worse with each successive pregnancy and as you get older." Great. I have "spider veins" this pregnancy as well which I also read happens more with each successive pregnancy. Lovely. I am going to be looking like a beat up spider lady. :)

At first I was discouraged. And then I thought: "You know what?! Everybody's body gets 'used up' in this life. Praise God I am able to 'use it up' to bring life into this world." Think about Christ Himself. God came, in the flesh, and His body was "used up" to bring us life! What a gift! "have the same mindset as Christ Jesus Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather, He made himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!" (Phil. 2:5-8)

When you become a Christian, your body is a vessel the Lord USES to bring Him glory (if you allow Him to). Like Christ we are to make ourselves servants first to God and then to others. Our bodies are literally the way that we go to others and serve them through a helping hand, a hug or a listening ear. There are many ways for your body to be used! In pregnancy I get the privelage of God "using" my body to form an eternal soul! Along the way I will gain weight, be uncomfortable, hormonal and less attractive all around (hello spider veins!) but I am thankful that this is a way for my body to be used!

Using your body for God's purposes is truly a form of worship!

It is a living sacrifice for God that is wasting away: "ALL FLESH IS LIKE GRASS, AND ALL ITS GLORY LIKE THE FLOWER OF GRASS. THE GRASS WITHERS, AND THE FLOWER FALLS OFF..." (1 Peter 1:24) Your body WILL be used up in this life, the question is: how will it be used up? For your glory or His? For others' benefit or for your own selfish ambitions? 

I spent much of the first part of my life obsessing over the way my body looked, to the point where I had a severe eating disorder (anorexia) for a few years. I remember when I became a Christian and I was hit with this realization: "I have wasted so much of my life pouring into something that is going to rot in the ground!" The enemy wants to distract us ladies from the true purpose of our bodies, they are to be a living sacrifice FOR HIM, not for us. This does not mean that you "let yourself go". We should take care of our bodies, God Himself said that physical exercise is of SOME benefit (1 Tim. 4:8). The problem is, for many women, the focus is on the physical MUCH more than the spiritual and God says the spiritual "has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." Your physical body will rot but who you are in Christ is eternal.

Ingrain this on your minds: "Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised." Prov. 31:30 Beauty does not last but the fear of the Lord lasts forever! Fear Him, allow Him to use your body up for His glory and keep your minds set on things above not on things of the earth.