My body is a temple

"I don’t intend to quit exercising. I’ve just learned that it’s important to separate truth from untruth. True: God created my body, and refers to it as a temple (1 Cor. 3:16). It’s logical that I take care of it. True: God is less concerned with outer beauty, which is dictated by human standards, than with inner beauty (1 Sam. 16:7). True: In God’s eyes, beauty is a gentle and quiet spirit. He tells me to dress with good deeds (1 Tim. 2:10) rather than the wardrobe of the rich and famous. I see appearances; God sees hearts. God’s way, at least for me, takes more work."

This is taken from an article I just read. I desire excercise, me, can you believe it? I need a way to get rid of some of my tension and energy and figure this is a constructive way to do that. I live in a big crime-ridden city and am not willing to walk alone when I'm available, which is usually after dark.

My youngest sister is getting married in two weeks. That in itself is a story not to be told today. However, I don't want to go back home looking the way I look today. I will, I don't see crazy lose 30 pounds in a week in a half miracles happening, but am I finally at a point where I'm willing to quit bitchin' and moanin' and do something about it.

I don't want tips. Just thinkin' out loud. I have some cravings that I'm trying to feed the wrong way - with food. Most importantly I crave God, really I do. I crave his love, his undivided attention, his lavishness flowing over me, his guidance and his joy in and for me, his child. Instead of feeding that craving with him and his word and worshiping him, I eat.
Again, no tips please. Just doing what ya do with a blog. Get it out and move with it.

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I can't link to this article for some reason so here is the text if you are interested:
Running in Place

By Meghan Price

Though I can’t hear the sound, and I’ve never seen an episode, I identify the show immediately: On the personal TV next to mine, a fellow exerciser is watching America’s Next Top Model. Solemn and sensuous, Tyra Banks addresses a crowd of runway hopefuls. I’m listening to a praise and worship CD. Running on a treadmill gets boring, so I use the time to pray or figure out my life. My earbuds are drowning the grating, grunting gym soundtrack with the message that the presence of God is better than the things of this world. I believe it. I’m above all that superficial stuff.

So why do I keep glancing back at that TV screen? I run harder, outpacing my music’s rhythm. Maybe my brain won’t notice that my eyes are surreptitiously examining each contestant, wondering how I would fare in that crowd. Would anyone pick me as a future model? She’s prettier than I am … but maybe not her … I could wear that outfit. Why don’t I ever dress like that? Frustrated, I accelerate my pace. The more I will myself to return my attention to God, the more fixated I become on the models. Their flawless skin. Their confident smiles. I remind myself that becoming America’s Next Top Model isn’t the way to please God.

Not that you could, a little voice says. You’re not that beautiful. Exhausted, I stop running. This race is already lost.

The workplace. Midnight out on the town. Alone with your date, back at his place. A prolonged visit with a difficult family member (or 10). These are arenas where spiritual conflict swells. But a gym? What’s so perilous about working out? It’s important for my future wellbeing. So what if it indulges—a tiny bit—the same part of me that feigns ignorance when my cleavage shows a little too much in a certain beloved dress? In the past year, I’ve been surprised to discover that my gym is one of the places I most acutely feel the pull to pursue a worldly image—because it’s a place where my material desires mingle subtly with my good intentions.

When I joined, it was in that hopeful New Year’s spirit of making over my entire life. I had a new job and a new relationship, and it was time to unleash that gorgeous, healthy body I knew I could achieve. Despite the initial enthusiasm, my life-modifying athletic regimen never exactly took over. In those contemplative hours in a windowless basement crammed with machines, weights and America’s undiscovered next top models, I’ve learned less about my body than I have about my heart. And it hasn’t all been pretty.

This comparative side of me pipes up unexpectedly, evaluating my shape versus that of the woman next to me, my time on the elliptical machine versus hers. I am drawn into an intense scrutiny of my body in a gigantic wall-size mirror. My body and I are in a love-hate phase. I see muscle in my arms, and I love it. I flex those tiny bumps. But when I catch myself standing in front of the mirror too long in the morning, approving one thing and plotting to alter another, I hate how much I care. Somehow my self-worth has gotten caught in the mirror. I’ve bought the myth of the makeover show—the misconception that improving my image will break its hold on me.

I’m in an OK place on the self-esteem scale, but I’m not deaf to the world’s siren: Look this way. Get this body. Use it like this. Even for smart, spiritual women, it’s hard to banish the thought that the next tangible thing would give control. Really, it’s the original lie from the Garden of Eden. Only the bait has changed. Duh, Satan, I think. Get a new ploy.
Nah, I imagine the response. The old one works just fine.

I don’t intend to quit exercising. I’ve just learned that it’s important to separate truth from untruth. True: God created my body, and refers to it as a temple (1 Cor. 3:16). It’s logical that I take care of it. True: God is less concerned with outer beauty, which is dictated by human standards, than with inner beauty (1 Sam. 16:7). True: In God’s eyes, beauty is a gentle and quiet spirit. He tells me to dress with good deeds (1 Tim. 2:10) rather than the wardrobe of the rich and famous. I see appearances; God sees hearts. God’s way, at least for me, takes more work.

I could use exercise to chase an image. But the message of God says that one day fully in His presence, in any body, is better than thousands with legs that don’t jiggle and shoulder blades that don’t jut out.

“What do you want today?” the instructor asks at the start of Thursday evening body sculpting.

“Thighs!” “Abs!” “Booty!” the women in the class call out. I never say anything. What I want today is to make peace with my workout. To appreciate it for what it really can do—no more, no less.

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Meghan Price lives in Cambridge, Mass., but she still thinks of New Jersey as home and the mountains as a piece of heaven. She is a freelance writer and full-time copyeditor.

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