Hello lovely! I write to you today from Ramstein Air Base in southwest Germany! My husband and I will be abroad for the next few months, traveling around Europe as he completes some required military training. Needless to say, I am THRILLED! 🙂
So we will wrap up our Nice series in the next week or two, and over the next few months I will be sharing some thoughts and photos from around Europe, as we dive into some more practical body stewardship topics, and start a few new topics as well!
But today, let’s return to where we left off last week. I was talking about the riot of emotions I was dealing with in Nice as I struggled with the shame of realizing my body care had taken a serious tumble.
So, what do you do with shame?
I think the best way to step into understanding body shame is to deal with it in two parts: understanding where it all started and how foundational it is, and then learning how to deal with it.
Let’s start with Part 1.
We must understand that this is a foundational issue. I don’t think there is anyone who does not feel some kind of shame, and I would bet that most of us have dealt with body shame in one or more of its guises. And if we take it back to Genesis, the first book of the Bible, this should be no surprise, as we see that this was one of the first results of the Fall – when Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden.
Right after God creates man and woman, and marriage is defined (“that is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24; NIV), the Bible calls out something as though it is of particular interest and importance: “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame,” (Genesis 2:25; NIV).
Hmm, that seems rather odd. Why is this so important? Let’s see what happens next.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5; NIV)
Satan works Eve right over. First he asks her to doubt that she really heard God correctly. Did God really say that? Are you sure you heard that teaching right? Eve doesn’t stumble yet – she states clearly that yes, she heard correctly and that is what God said.
So Satan takes a different tac. He tells her it’s not certain that she’ll die, and God only wants her to think this so that she and the man can’t be more powerful. In other words, the Word from God isn’t necessarily true, and God doesn’t have her best interests in mind anyway. What follows is the deceiving logic that she should be able to decide what’s best for her and her man, and ignore God’s teaching.
I want to pause here for a minute. How many of us have actually believed this, whether intentionally or inadvertently? Either that parts of God’s Word that we don’t particularly like aren’t true, or that we must not have heard it correctly, or that God doesn’t have our best interests in mind and isn’t trustworthy?
I know I have tripped up here! In fact, deciding to follow God’s way instead of making up my own way as I went along is one of the most pivotal parts of my story, which I’ll go into more in future posts. It amazes me, in those moments, how convinced I am that what I want to believe (which is incorrect) is right and justified, and then how flabbergasted I am that I fell for such a lie when I finally come out of that phase. What a cycle! Satan is such a jerk!
Back to poor Eve – she falls for Satan’s second lie, and we know what happens next:
Then the eyes of both of them [Adam and Eve] were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7; NIV)
Eve and Adam realize they are naked. Why this is their first realization, instead of that they have hair, or that Adam’s voice is deeper, has always fascinated me! We fall from grace, and the first thing that happens to us is we are ashamed of our naked bodies, and try to hide them in various ways.
Whether this is through dumpy clothes, or too little clothing hoping for affirmation, or through dangerous eating habits or measures to control our weight, I would bet that part of the origin of many if not all of these unhealthy ways of interacting with our bodies is based in this body shame that started so long ago.
Then God comes back, seeking to continue the intimate relationship He has with his human creations.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (Genesis 3:8-11; NIV)
Whoops! Somebody’s in trouble! And unfortunately the punishment is severe:
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22-24; NIV)
If you’re like me, you’re feeling pretty down about now. This story is not going so well. Don’t worry, I promise it gets better! Let me leave you with a verse I skipped, Genesis 3:21: “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
What significance does this have? It’s huge: Adam and Eve have just expressly gone against the Word of God and they are most definitely suffering for it. But in spite of their disobedience, distrust of God, and though they will now have a much harder row to hoe, God is still caring for them – essentially, dressing their wounds: caring for them in exactly the way that they have sinned: covering the bodies they are now ashamed of, even though it was not supposed to be so.
To be honest with you, I had not intended to dive so deeply into this. But as I looked over the Scriptures I realized this really needed a post all its own (probably a book all its own! Oh wait, I’m writing that book…! ) Our bodies have been of fundamental importance to God from the very beginning, and as we’ll see in posts to come, even though they were perhaps the first casualties of the Fall, they play a big role in how we have been saved from all this mess too…stay tuned! 🙂
For now, Tschüss! (Bye!)
Love and Freedom,
Jackie
