THE BELOVEDNESS OF MY BODY

Photo from Unsplash.

I have been concerned about coming out of quarantine for many reasons, first of all being that so many did not have the shelter of sheltering in place to begin with.  As for me, I am an extrovert, so being trapped in my apartment was a gift in terms of being able to, but it left me feeling depleted socially and emotionally.  I also struggle deeply with my body, while trying to love her.  We have been in a tumultuous relationship for over 34 years.  I like to say that I love her, but we fight sometimes.

Just this week, I went to get my second COVID vaccine, and I was nervous. I was, for some reason, mostly nervous about my body. I literally did not fear the vaccine; I feared being seen in order to receive it. I have been doing almost everything without being seen from the waist down, and I feared for this whole year that when my body in her fullness was seen again, I’d be ashamed of her.  I’ve struggled with eating disorders, fad dieting, chronic illness, navigating the shift and change of sobriety in my skin, so many things in terms of addressing the inevitable gift and challenge of being in skin.  During the pandemic I tried to really embrace a self-love gathered through prayer that could extend to my body, no matter its shape when I emerged from quarantine. I specifically tried to focus my attention on embodiment and the gift of Christ’s incarnation, a reminder and promise that bodies are so beloved by God that God felt it important to take one on, such that the God of all creation does not only make us, but that God makes us and never departs from us, from our bodies, and from our struggles in them.  What divine mercy I feel when I remember that the tumultuous relationship I have with my body is a tumult that Christ knew intimately. Christ knew how to love bodies even in their gifts and challenges, because he was in his own body on the cross, and because he loved those that received his healing touch, that mystery of faith and healing that showed me a God I could believe in when I met him in the gospels.

But I was still nervous. Nervous that a year of trying to love myself might slip away in the hustle and bustle of re-entering a world that treasures hustle and bustle more than a prayer to God for self-love.

To my surprise, when I went out this week, I wasn’t ashamed of my body. I loved her. I felt powerful.  I felt beautiful in a way I could never have imagined. I wore a crop top (previously thought to be for people who looked differently than me).  I felt so grateful to have this sweet body, to have made it through this year. I thought about those who passed, and sat with my grief for them. It was an incredibly difficult feeling - holding together my gratitude for being alive and my grief for those who died, trying to remind myself that gratitude and grief aren’t in competition.  

There is a profound awkwardness in bodies, but also a beauty that connects our incarnation to the very incarnation of God, as we are made in the image of God, and we never depart from that image and the birthright of belovedness it bestows. I was able to give thanks for my body, even with its chronic illness, even with the way it never looks in the mirror the way it looks in photographs, even with the way I always doubt how it looks in the eyes that behold me.  

I was able to see a beauty in the resilience of my skin, a sevenfold revelation of how God is loving me, how my body and my God have kept me alive this year and every year before it.  I’m learning to, maybe for the first time, trust the gift of my body entrusted to me by God.