They reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles

Acts 14:27

I am here today to report what God has started to do through my body and how He has opened a door of faith through my cancer diagnosis.

And it’s been a long time coming because I grew up hating my body. I looked in the mirror and always saw too much fat, a flat chest, and shoulders that were too broad. My nose hooks downward when I smile. My hair never would hold a spiral perm. 

I don’t believe there has ever been a time when I looked in a mirror and didn’t note something I needed to change, even when I was complimenting myself.

Only now, at 51 years old (almost 52), as I battle Stage IV colorectal cancer, do I begin to understand how sinful those thoughts were. 

Now, as I fight to preserve my body, I begin to understand what a gift from our Holy Creator God that my body is. 

Job replied to the Lord, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”

Job 42:3

I was never taught that my body was a gift from God, not in the way I think of it now. I spoke of my body as someone who did not understand. Perhaps our bodies are too wonderful to know, and that is what scares us about them. 

The sources of my body hatred are many. I can start with the easy target – mass media. Most certainly images and messages from advertising and movies and magazines shaped my understanding of what is an acceptable body type and reminded me of all the ways my body failed to meet the standard.

Here’s an easy and seemingly innocuous example. I have been watching reruns of Family Ties lately.  I love that show, and I see so much of Marc and me in Steven and Elise, but what I notice even more so is just how thin the actors on the show are. When I was a teen in the 1980s, if I compared myself in the mirror to the women on TV and in magazines, I would always be too big.

I also listened when boys told me my body was below par, and eighth grade boys seemed more than willing to share their opinions. There was that boy in science class when I wore a blue jean mini skirt: “You oughta be glad someone wants to touch your leg as big as they are.” Or another boy in reading class: “Your middle name is Starr? More like Supernova.” 

My mom had me on a diet when I was in kindergarten, writing down what we ate along with calorie counts. She told me a lady never ate more than one sandwich. I could play softball as long as it kept me in shape. As a kid, I loved Wonder Woman, and as we watched the show together one time, she said, “See, Kristie. She has broad shoulders like you.” 

Her messages about my body were more complicated than simple criticisms or tough love, though. She made it clear that the way I looked would determine the type of husband I would be able to secure, and securing a solid husband was (or should be) my first priority. That was what she was taught. She honestly thought she was doing right by me. Yet, she also taught me that even though I must maintain my body in order to attract a good male partner, my body would also be the source of danger among the bad men. Knowing what to accentuate and what to hide was essential girl information if the girl wanted to be the wife and not the mistress, or worse yet, the victim.

And yes, the messages I heard in church taught me to hate my body, as well. For sure, they taught me that my body was a temple for the Holy Spirit.

Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20

But that verse was used to teach us not to have premarital sex or not to be fat or not to smoke or drink alcohol. It was not used to teach us that our bodies were designed as the Creator intended, that bodies were beautiful reflections of a Creator who loves variety and who has different tasks for each human. Different tasks and talents were the province of men; a woman’s task was to marry and have children. Until then, a woman’s body was dangerous but necessary – a reflection of one’s holy dedication and an indicator of one’s potential as a wife and mom.

For all of you who only encountered positive body messages in church, we need your voices now. Please continue to speak about how God created our bodies and loves what He created. I know that my experience doesn’t represent the messages from all Christian churches, but I have listened to enough women my age to know that I was not the only one hearing the message that my body was evil in its attractiveness while at the same time being told that having an attractive body was necessary to fulfill my expectations as a Christian woman.

Yet, it was when I was pregnant, when I carried another life within me, that I truly, for the first time, appreciated and cherished the physical body God had given me. Only when my body was responsible for nurturing another life did I begin to listen to the messages my body was telling me.  While pregnant, loving my body meant loving my child; after my children were born, however, the shame of residual baby fat crept back into my heart. 

Disclaimer – at no time ever has my husband ever body-shamed me. The shame I feel comes from within my own head and heart, from the way I allowed others to shame me long before I met him, and this cycle of self-hatred often baffles him. Marc’s love and support strengthen me daily and encourage me to speak truth, even if he doesn’t understand why I have allowed these lies to warp me. But the thing is, I don’t know why I allowed it either.

As an adult, my body has changed countless times in countless ways, and even as I managed to strengthen my body and see it accomplish what it had never before accomplished (like the time I ran my first 5K or when I beat my record for planks at 9Round or when I made it to the top of Rainbow Falls), I was only beginning to understand the gift that is the human body. 

For the Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Job 33:4

All that changed on July 12, 2023. Marc’s 58th birthday. He was recovering from prostate cancer surgery less than two weeks before. I was scheduled for my very first screening colonoscopy. As I waited for the anesthesiologist, I told Marc, “This is such a waste of my time. We should be out doing something fun for your birthday.” 

“We will as soon as you get this over with,” he assured me. 

Within minutes of waking up from the propofol, the doctor entered the curtained area and said, “Well, we found some cancer.” 

I drank a Ginger Ale as I listened to the details. Not a Diet Ginger Ale. One with sugar. I can’t remember that last time I had a drink with sugar in it. 

He spoke of a U-shaped tumor. Tattooed and biopsied for the surgeon. Referral to surgeon already sent.

My question to the doctor: “How much is this going to interfere with my life?”

His answer: “Oh, this is going to interfere significantly with your life.” 

Plot twist. Not just a bend in the road, but a sudden left turn. Heart-stopping moment. Any other cliche we can imagine to describe these life-changing moments.

My body now demanded my full attention. 

My days quickly filled with doctors’ appointments and tests and scans. Before treatment ever began, I endured several painful tests including a liver biopsy that revealed the cancer had begun to spread from my rectum area to my liver. During my second MRI, I had to take a shot directly into a muscle that made my left arm ache for the rest of the day. Nurses prepared me to expect burning sensations during CT scans. 

I have taken only two chemo treatments out of six prescribed, and my body has already been altered. My hands are drying out. I can’t seem to get enough to drink. My lips are chapped. I feel like I am perpetually trying to walk under water. If this first set of chemo infusions work, we move to surgery next. 

I am now willingly welcoming physical pain in order to save the very body that I used to curse.

How much time did I waste cursing my thighs? Why did I bite my nails in anxiety, fearful of not living up to someone else’s standard? Why couldn’t I see the beauty in the gift that God have given me?

Every two weeks, I submit to infusions of the poison that is chemotherapy so that it will kill the evil cells of cancer, even as it weakens the rest of the body that I now cherish. I welcome the poison because it may preserve the very body that I tried to kill with self-hatred, but that I desperately want to preserve now. 

Years upon years I leaked poison into my body when I listened to what other people said about my weight or my looks, when I told myself that I would be better when I looked better. Those voices were not the voices of the Holy Spirit. Those voices did not speak the truth that is in Psalm 139: 13-14.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it.

Psalm 139: 13-14

How well I know now the workmanship of the Lord that is my body, but I denied that workmanship for so long. We are such shallow creatures, looking at the outside, but that is not what God sees. 1 Samuel 6:17 tells us that  “…The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” And my heart for so long was overly concerned with my outward appearance. 

But now, my heart is concerned with life here on earth and all the joys that a full and abundant life allow. I know my soul is secure in the Lord. That is not the question. The question is how I spend the rest of my time on earth. My heart longs for opportunity to climb up a hill to see another waterfall. My heart longs to be a grandma one day. My heart longs for the healing of the Holy Spirit on my body so that I might do the work of the Spirit here on this living earth in my body that is still alive and able to do. 

I hold fast to 1 Peter 1: 6-7, which says,

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold – though your faith is far more precious than mere gold….”

1 Peter 1:6-7

And I believe that the Lord has called me to write about this trial. He has gifted me with a love of writing, and if I have learned anything through this first month of cancer reality, it is that God’s gifts are meant to be used for His glory. I did not appreciate the gift of a healthy body until I was in danger of losing it – as old a cliché as there ever was. I valued the words of others over the Word of the Lord, and for that I repent, and I pray that I send out words of life and truth to other girls who are listening to lies about their bodies. 

And that is why I am writing this now. We have to value the gifts God has given us and use them for His kingdom, and that means valuing our bodies, the flesh in which we walk, think, sing, and eat. Should we live by the flesh only? Of course not, we live in the Spirit, but the Spirit propels us to do the work of the Lord in the flesh. Neither am I saying that God is punishing me through cancer. I am saying, however, that cancer has led me to repent for the way I disrespected the gift that God gave me in the form of my physical body. 

Our physical bodies are valued and loved by our God; they are a gift from God. Hating parts of my body was a sin, and another sin was listening to the voices that sanctioned the hatred of the way I looked. 

God reached out to humanity by sending Jesus in physical form, as John 1:14 tells us:

Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us.

John 1: 14

Resurrected Jesus appeared in in the form of his physical body. Luke tells us that Jesus said,

“Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it’s really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do.” As he spoke, he showed them his hands and his feet.

Luke 24: 39-40

Can our bodies lead us into sin? Can the flesh cause us strife? Absolutely, beyond a doubt, but it is through our physical bodies that we do the work of the Lord, that we feed both the physical and spiritual hunger of others, that we comfort others in their distress. 

And that is what I ask now of our Lord and Savior: please heal my body so that I might move forward in the good works that you have called me to do. Help me to take this lesson and share it for the healing of others.

I leave for now with this thought, my prayer for this post:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 19:14