Do you take your body for granted? I do. I depend on it to get me through the day and do all that is scheduled and needed. Yesterday, my body didn’t do that for me. I experienced two syncopal episodes (fainting) close together with weakness, sweating, disorientation. Surgery I had prepared for was cancelled. After the infusion of two bags of IV fluid my body felt like mine again. My heart rhythm was not normal and I’ll be seeing a cardiologist to evaluate that. As I sat this morning enjoying the quiet, sacred time I love so much, I noticed my hand holding my journal. A true marvel that God designed. In the worst moments yesterday, when I felt such helplessness, everything narrowed down to a cry to God to help me. I couldn’t “see” anything but helpless need. Today I marvel at everything God so generously provides for our body to function. Water, food, air, sunshine. As the deer pants for streams of water, my soul pants for you, my God. Psalm 42:1. That was me yesterday.

Reading Genesis 37 this morning I couldn’t help but wonder what Joseph, 11th son of Jacob (Israel), experienced physically as he was sold into slavery by his brothers. Hardship, deprivation? He had been the favored son of his father which is why his brothers were so jealous of him. Now, he was at the mercy of the slave traders, his body was no longer his own. I can’t help but think about these things because it didn’t feel like my body was my own yesterday.

Do you ever feel like that? We get sick and we realize that what we take for granted, health from a well oiled machine, is compromised. It doesn’t take long to appreciate how little we are in control until our bodies recover and we go on as before. You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1. I think our bodies provide reality checks for us. There isn’t one thing my body needs to function that hasn’t been provided by our generous Lord. I realize my body is temporary. It was beautifully designed to enable me to experience life. It won’t last forever as nature itself shows us.

But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 1 Corinthians 15:38-44.

I am so grateful for this body God so generously gave me and provides for. I am so grateful He is with me when that body is sown in weakness however temporarily; and I realize a deep need for help which He also provides. My soul and body thirsts for everything He alone provides.