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What I Wish I Knew About My Body in My Twenties

What I Wish I Knew About My Body in My Twenties

I spent a good portion of my twenties focusing on my body and being critical about the shape of it, the size of it, the weight of it. If my pant size moved up, I did what I could to move the size back down. I worried that my body wasn’t as it should be, that it wasn’t good enough and that it needed to change.

Now, in my thirties, I have come to a comfortable peace with my body. Are there still things I would change if I could? Sure. But over the last decade, as my relationship with God has deepened—and as my body has altered and shifted—I have been able to cling to gratefulness.

My body has carried me through severe sickness and emotional pain. It has grown and stretched with a child I love dearly. It has walked me over thousands of miles across the world. I am thankful for it, jiggles and all.

Here are the things I wish I had understood about my body in my twenties—the things that have allowed me to not only accept but rejoice in the body I have:

Your body’s main purpose is not to attract others to it.

Our culture shows us more than enough images of bodies to make us believe that they exist simply to attract others. And in large part because of that, I had a lot of angst in my twenties about how my body appeared to others. I looked in the mirror for lumps and bumps in what I considered to be the “wrong places,” and chose my clothes based on how attractive I thought they made me look to others.

I wanted to look beautiful, and I wanted to be attractive.

Now, hear me: I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with wanting to appear attractive. I still want to be a beautiful woman. But it was the way I approached my body in my twenties that made my mindset so unhealthy. I was operating from the lens that culture had taught me, rather than getting my grid for beauty and attractiveness from Scripture.

I’m not suggesting that we wear paper bags and frumpy clothes, but what I wish I would have grasped in my twenties is this: Your body’s main purpose is to worship the God who created it.

The book of Romans exhorts us: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

Your body is primarily a means of worshiping God—through service, through love, through acts of praise and mercy. Attracting the presence of God through the lives we live in our bodies is much more important than attracting the passing attention of others.

Your health and fitness are immensely more important than a number on a scale.

I was an athlete through high school and into college. But when I was no longer on a team, I treated exercise as a way to keep my weight in check rather than as a tool for strengthening and protecting the only body I’ve been given.

I worked out to keep the numbers on the scale down and didn’t worry about long-term health goals like building muscle mass or staying limber and flexible. Now, in my thirties, I’m keenly aware of the fact that this body isn’t going to last forever.

I wish I had been able to tell myself this: You are the only one—outside of a doctor or two, perhaps—who knows that number on the scale. And you are the only one who cares about that number.

Your weight is a number that does not define or even identify you. It has nothing to do with your eternal value or earthly import. But you will be living in this body for the rest of your life. Try to think long-term about caring for it and preparing it for a lifetime of work, service and love.

Sex is wonderful but it isn’t the pinnacle of existence.

Part of the angst about attractiveness and the shape and size of our bodies stems from a culture that is obsessed with sex. And when the act of sex is at the center of a culture’s focus, then bodies become hyper-sexualized—everything about their attractiveness stems from sexualized ideals. But what I wish I had known in my twenties was that the other aspects of sex—the emotional aspect, the spiritual aspect, the relational aspect—these are the things that make sex deeply satisfying, over and over again, with the same person, in the context of a godly marriage.

I needed to hear in my twenties that it’s not the shape or size of a body that makes sex wonderful—it’s the context of sex within a loving marriage to a fun and thoughtful spouse thats gives sex its power and delight.

Your body is decaying, even now.

In my early twenties, I imagined that my body was endlessly malleable and unceasingly able. There had not been much, yet, that I couldn’t make it do, at least within the realms of normal, everyday life.

If I wanted to run, I went for a run. If I wanted to play pick-up basketball, I played. If I wanted to stay up late, I stayed up. Now, a decade later, I’m feeling the truth of a body that is already starting to break down. I’m tired—a lot. I’m not as flexible. My knees are actually starting to creak when I bend down. And my metabolism is slowing. I’m feeling the effects of what I’m heading toward—death.

I won’t say it’s not discouraging to feel my body breaking down already. But it has pointed me to the truth that the Apostle Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 4: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (v. 16).

Externally, we are wasting away—all of us. What I wish I would have grasped in my twenties is that these bodies, as they are, don’t work very well or very long. Yet, as we grow in faith, in relationship with Jesus, and as we aim for the Kingdom of God, we can be encouraged that our souls are being renewed and actually strengthened. Our bodies may be dying, but our souls are living—and growing.

And, there’s good news for our bodies, too. Because ultimately, there is a day coming for Christians when these bodies will be made new, as well (see Philippians 3:20-21).

So, while it’s important to take care of these bodies, it’s also important to keep the right perspective: Let’s aim for a healthy soul that pursues God more than anything else.

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