Those Perfect Quirks......

“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
    before I’d even lived one day” (Psalm 139:13-22)

The very imperfections that make us beautiful are also the things we work to change. We live in a world where the Plastic Surgery Industry rakes in millions if not billions of dollars each year altering the very quirks that define us. We fill our minds with molds of what is “normal” and beat ourselves up if somehow we falter from that very segment on the graph. Height, weight, eye color, lash length, breast size, it continues on to a downward spiral until even men now focus on the ways in which we are told we don’t quite fit in. Our society has turned into the “Land of Misfit Toys” and somehow instead of taking a stand we continue to work tirelessly to “fit” in. We are all running around aimlessly trying to fit in which causes the line to be erased and redrawn in the sand towards perfection. We are a society known for plastic surgery; tanning, SPANX, fake nails, and the list could go on and on. Now I’m not saying any of these things are necessarily bad because I have “fake and baked” and tried sucking in my belly a time or two to pull up those awfully tight SPANX so the rest of the day you don’t even want to think about going to the bathroom because it’s so much work, but really?!

“Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Each year as Christmas rolls around there is this excitement that stirs within so many of us to decorate a tree. At our house we go to my in-laws and pick the perfect fresh Canaan Fir Tree out and bring it home to decorate. We add lights and ornaments and before you know it the once very natural looking tree has a bit of glow and character. This is what I am saying when we talk about our bodies. Each one of us have different things about our characters that make up who we are. I like crazy and big hair J and have my own unique style and that’s just apart of not what DEFINES me but adds character to who I am. However the moment we allow ourselves to work tirelessly trying to be something we aren’t or take away the very simple and natural things God has created within us we are destroying His design for us. 

I was talking with a friend tonight about Psalm 139. “You knit me together perfectly in my mother’s womb, you knew each and every part of my being.” This verse wasn’t written for Amber as a newborn, an infant, toddler or even child but for me and you for each season of our lives. It was written when we are 8 and full of energy, 30 with stretch marks, and 95 with wrinkles because what God created was perfect. He knew before time how beautiful we would be and that I would have lots of freckles and be less than 5 foot. He knew that my husband Scott would be bald at 30 and have the sweetest and warming smile. He knew that my sister Stephanie would scrunch her nose when she laughs and Bethany would have dimples. Each one of us is different and that very uniqueness is what defines our beauty, those little quirks are merely apart of Gods perfection.