The Story We Live In Our Bodies

Meditations on learning to accept what is.

I have a surgery on Monday. I am feeling rather frozen and numb about it all. I’ve done enough counselling to know that emotions are merely information from our bodies but lack of emotion is also information.

You might automatically think “It’s fear. She’s afraid.” And in some ways I think my body and mind are afraid. The body definitely keeps the score.

Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash

My last surgery was on March 13, 2020 - the day everything in my city shut down because of Covid-19. I went in for the surgery and that night the schools and stores and churches were closed and none of us knew if they would ever open up again. We never knew if we were going to be able to hug someone again. The hospital was in a bit of chaos and I got sent home without quite enough pain medications for the unexpectedly large incision they had to make. So fear is surely in there.

But, I think more deeply, I have had a hard time accepting this part of my life story. When I was younger I hoped to get married, have a few kids, and maybe work as a teacher. Somehow “develop a chronic illness” never made my dream board. Let alone developing two chronic illnesses. It is most certainly a mood, just not one I would have chosen. I’m not sure we would ever willingly choose pain.

I had gotten to a point where IVs, hospitals, and operating rooms were so common that it was second nature. After a colonoscopy in 2022, I declared 2023 the year of no procedures, IVs, or surgeries and I was granted that gift. Now, 14 months after my last hospital visit - the idea of an IV in my arm and the spaceship-like surgery room feels otherworldly. I struggle to accept it as something I have lived through and as something I might continue to live through.

It seems all very Lenten to be in this place, being forced to engage with the frailty, death, and malfunction I carry in my body. And yet, at the same time, I also carry the Imago Dei. We all live in this strange paradox - we carry both death and life within our very skin. My body, and yours, will return to dust. Right now I’m being reminded of the death part - the body filled with endometriosis lesions. And yet, at the same time, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash

NT Wright says that the source of Christian hope is the resurrection of our bodies. The bible says it too. Our hope is that God will resurrect our bodies and make them new, not divine but the glorious way we were created to be. The bodies about which God said “this is very good.” We will still have limitations but we won’t be filled with death. It’s hard to even wrap my head around and rather un-Lenten to talk about just yet.

The reason we swipe our foreheads with ashes and fast during Lent and remember that we will die is because the more we live in reality, the more we live in the presence of Jesus. As we remember our need, the more we know our Savior and delight in him.

Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash

Our world has such a strange relationship with the body. Truly, it is just modern day gnosticism. Culturally, we seem to believe that every single one of us was owed different bodies. When our bodies disappoint us we reject them, modify them, nip and tuck them. We hide them or flaunt them, use them as weapons or hurt them.

I have spent a lot of life blaming my body for its malfunction. But it is not its fault. Learning to love my body, the one that doesn’t do what I want it to, is a way for me to know the hope of the resurrection. These chronic illnesses have brought me to my knees and there, I met the kindness of Jesus.

My resistance to accept the story of my body hinders my ability to receive the presence of Jesus. Embracing my human-ness is not giving in, it is actually the way towards Jesus, knowing him not just in Spirit but Incarnationally. Jesus lives in our very bodies, not just in a mythic way but in a very real and present way because Jesus lives in the deepest reality that there is. He is the real-est reality and the more we live there, the more we live with him.

I’m not thrilled about another IV and pain meds and recovery. I’m tired of the surgeries. I’m not ungrateful for the miracle of modern medicine, just tired of it. But I will be showing up for my surgery and for the meeting with the surgeon about her findings. And I will carry with me the same Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the dead.

In that paradox I am living and learning to find hope. I would have never chosen pain but I have met a more living and vibrant Jesus as a result.

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Shows I will be watching on my surgery recovery week:

• 9 to 5

• Sabrina

• The Holdovers

• Newsradio

• Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo and Juliet

• Searching for Sugarman

  *Also, my usual comfort shows - Parks and Recreation and The West Wing

Books I will have on my nightstand and hopefully read some of them:

• My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman

• All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore

• Little Yellow House by Carissa Halton

• The Sound of Life’s Unspeakable Beauty by Martin Schleske

• The Sweetness At The Bottom of Pie by Alan Bradley

*I wanted to read Thursday Murder Club but the wait list at the library was way too long.

Post Surgery Eats

This granola with blueberries and soy milk. (I always add 1 tsp of cinnamon instead of 1/2 tsp)

This granola bar recipe. (It has corn syrup but I do allow myself to have that on special occasions 😊 I also can’t eat oats and substitute quinoa flakes for both these recipes)

1 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup corn syrup (maybe a little less)

1/2 cup margarine

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup raisins

1/3 cup wheat germ (or oats for gluten free people)

2 tbsp sesame seeds

1 cup chocolate chips

1. Combine brown sugar, peanut butter, corn syrup, margarine, vanilla.

2. Add the remaining ingredients.

3. Press into 13X9 greased pan.

4. Cook at 300’ for 15-25 minutes.

5. Let cool before cutting and enjoy!