A floating head

I layed down to take a nap today. As I turned on my side, I looked over at the mirror across the room and saw a strange sight...it looked as though my head was the only part of my body and that the rest of my body (covered in a blanket) had sunk into the bed. It just looked like a head sticking up from a bed of quicksand.

And then I thought a strange thought: "I want to be loved for who I am, not what I look like."

Imagine that we were just a bunch of heads floating around this world. We weren't obsessed with the image of our bodies--how fat or thin, muscular or flabby, tall or short, tan or black or white, we are--and instead we knew one another on only the basis of WHO we are. Our thoughts, our abilities to love, to speak, to dream. Would we dream bigger? Would we dream epics? Would we love better?

Of course, I love having a body and the joy that physical effort brings. I mean, God created us with bodies for a purpose! But I also don't want to be motivated by my body or by other peoples' bodies. Does that make sense? In dealing with love, dreams, and hopes, I mean. It is through the action of our bodies that we accomplish things, but it cannot be our focus or motivation. Our bodies are tools; they are, as the Word says, "temples." A temple is something to be honored, but not worshipped.

I want to be a woman of integrity in body and in attitude. Yes, I have a body. My body will wither and die one day too. But Ash, the spirit and human inside, will live always, by the grace of Jesus Christ.