How To Love Your Body

Many people believe that loving their body means convincing themselves they are beautiful enough, athletic enough, etc. They make a list of their positive attributes and try to focus on that, while ignoring the 'bad' parts. We'd like to challenge this idea of love.

It's easy to love your good parts. Anybody can make a list of the things they love about themselves. But what about loving the parts of your body you feel ashamed about? How do you do that? A person focused on being thin might ask, how could I possibly love my fat?

In a biblical sense, to love something means to adopt it - to desire goodness for it. To love your body means to adopt it. You don't even have to like your body to love it. To adopt your body means to choose your body over any other, and to select it as your own.

It also means to invest your time, love and attention in caring for it, just as you would if you were adopting a child. Even if your child has many flaws, you would never exchange it for another.

Finally, to adopt your body means to believe in it and have hope in it. In adopting your body, you also come to believe God loves your body.

Adopting your flaws and shortcomings is more difficult than it sounds. You may want to put some distance between yourself and your problems. This is natural.

Each and every one of us has a certain beauty within, a place inside made in the image of God. That place is the soul and it is the heart of the person. First you feel the beauty of the heart inside of you, and then you notice that your body isn't always a good representative of this inner beauty.

That can make you want to reject your body.

When you realize the body can't, and never will, measure up to the beauty of the heart within, it feels like a crushing blow and you may want to escape somehow.

Later you realize that no body, and nothing on earth could possibly measure up to your beauty within. There is nothing good enough to represent all that you are made for - no job, no spouse, no home, or fancy car will measure up.

You realize that to live well on earth you need to forgive the earth for its shortcomings, including your earthly imperfections.

Compassion for these shortcomings wells up from your heart as you learn to adopt many things as your own, not just your body. Adopting your loved ones, your community, your society, and nation despite their flaws and shortcomings makes your life special, tender, and sweet.

You come to realize that despite their earthly shortcoming each of these individuals has a beautiful heart made for God too.