Your Marvelous Body

Ann said her son Phillip was the amusement of all who heard him in the department store dressing room that day. She was on every woman's most dreaded mission: trying to find a swimsuit for the summer. Like many mothers with preschoolers, she had to have her not-quite-four-year-old son, Phillip, tag along. More honest than a husband ever dare be, Phillip functioned as her own on-the-spot commentator. She is your average-sized 30-something mother of two.

Ann picked three suits to try on. After she put on the first one, Phillip looked at her quizzically and asked, "Are you going to wear your socks with that?" Somehow trying on suits with socks never did much for my legs, either. She assured him no, of course not.

She tried on the next one.

"Do policemen arrest people for wearing bathing suits?" Ann assumed that meant the suit was nearing the dangerous category but she assured him that people were more likely to be arrested for not wearing suits than for anything they had on.

She tried on her last choice.

"That one is kind of silly-nice," Phillip said with his preschooler's vocabulary. Ann assumed it was the nearest thing she was going to get to a compliment, so she bought the suit.

Well I've never had a four-year-old male commentator help me pick out a swimsuit, but even my slim daughters hate the task of swimsuit shopping: too little material, too much leg, too high of price. I think we all hate it so much because it brings us face-to-mirror with the reality of our bodies.

But God gave us our bodies, and pretty marvelous creations they are. Contemplate just your skin for a minute. At least while we are younger, the skin is made to heal over any openings very quickly; if a foreign object like a splinter invades it, the skin can fester and removes the intruder itself, often without your help!

Become conscious of your breathing. I'm not much of a scientist, but when you reflect just a little on this process, it is amazing! Oxygen enters the trachea, bronchial tubes and lungs, and then fills up the air sacs lining the lungs. The air sacs are lined with capillaries, very small thin tubes which carry blood. Oxygen is able to enter the blood through the capillaries and travel throughout the body.

Even if pouring our bodies into a new swimsuit is not our idea of fun, how can we become more comfortable with the body gifts we have been given? Maybe if we try to appreciate the marvelous creations that they are, we will worry less about a bulge here and there.

Remember the line from the Bible: "Don't worry about having something to eat, drink, or wear. Isn't life more than food or clothing? Look at the birds in the sky. They don't plant or harvest. Yet God takes care of them. Aren't you worth more than birds?"

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Contributed by Melodie Davis from her weekly columnANOTHER WAY (http://www.thirdway.com/aw/).For information on using Another Way in a local newspaper, contact:ANOTHER WAY, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22801-2497; or call1-800-999-3534; fax at 540-434-5556; or email me at:Melodie@mennomedia.org