On Goldenrod & Body Image

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Dear Maggie,*

Once when I was a teenager, I went to a big concert by a Christian band-–the kind of concert where you feel the drums beat under your ribcage. The event was themed around one of the band’s new songs, which dealt with the worth of a young woman who doesn’t see herself as beautiful in God’s sight. In a world where social media leers at girls to look skinny and tanner than an orange peel, this is a worthy subject. 

At the same time, I left that concert as a 16-year-old thinking something like: Man, I’m really something, aren’t I?

I’m writing to you, Maggie, with the temptations of your generation weighing on my mind because I was there a few short years ago. Now married and in my mid-twenties, I can look back at a time when I walked boldly into church but struggled in front of the mirror. Christian songs and books told me I was beautiful the way God made me, created in His image, dressed in white as His bride. But instead of humbling me, these sentiments just made me think all the more about my physical body—where it measured up, and where it didn’t.

It wasn’t until I got married and became pregnant that I realized those antidotes were lacking something. It’s the answer to the question asked by age-old catechisms, of, What is the chief end of man? Or, put another way, Why was I made?

Paul asks the question (and answers it) squarely:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 
– 1 Cor. 6:19-20

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Strange to call a woman’s body a temple and not a tree or a rose, don’t you think? But the temple was built with a twofold purpose, just as we women were: 1) to reflect the beauty of God, and 2) to be used in the worship of Him. In fact, the elegant design of the temple was itself an act of worship to God, just as the simple existence of a stalk of goldenrod brings Him glory—and just as your face, eyes, hair, and smile uniquely reflects his artistry.

Yet even the loveliest goldenrod this time of year provides nectar for the bees. I think that usefulness is what I was looking for at 16 and still find myself in search of.

Well, Maggie, when the Lord planted a little life inside me this past summer — a baby the size of a poppy seed — my purpose became as clear as light. Even while I was sleeping, I knew my body was busy nourishing, protecting, and supplying that life with all that it needed. So when my body suddenly ceased that work, and when I miscarried our Poppy, I felt my purpose shrivel up. My body had been so useful, so purposeful, so full in pregnancy. Now, all I could do was make breakfast for my husband and rest in the rocking chair we’d bought with our baby in mind.

Again, the question of my teen years came to me: What is the purpose of my body? Like the temple of old, I realized its purpose hadn’t changed.

In singleness, it was to worship Christ. 

In marriage, it is to worship Christ. 

In pregnancy, it was to worship Christ. 

And now, in this strange season of no longer being pregnant, it is to worship Christ with the good works He’s set before for me, that I should walk in them (Eph. 2:10). These “good works” land me right in the middle of my home and local church (Titus 2:4-5).  

See, Maggie, Paul used the word “temple” to describe our bodies, but elsewhere, he used that word to describe the church (1 Cor. 3:16-17). And so everything those books and songs told me is true, but it is true in the context of Jesus’s Bride. We are made in God’s image, we are dressed in white as His bride, and we are beautiful together, only because He has ransomed and purified us before God like a young woman on her wedding day (Rev. 19:7-8).

Scripture illustrates that God’s holiness is His beauty (Ps. 27:4), and so holiness produces beauty, first in our hearts—in how we come to His Word, submit ourselves to Him, repent of our sins—and then in how we serve others. When we completely devote our hearts to Christ, we will use our bodies well.

 When we completely devote our hearts to Christ, we will use our bodies well.

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Like the goldenrod of the field, God made you to be both beautiful and useful—to blossom in season and sometimes shed its seeds in harvest. This may not be the encouragement you hear on Christian radio, dear Maggie, but it’s the advice I needed from an older sister at your age: 

Offer your body as a living sacrifice to the Lord (Rom. 12:1). Die to yourself, and let Him bring forth much useful fruit in you (John 12:24). Do the dishes after the church potluck, babysit for a tired mom, cook a meal this week for someone who needs it. Get your hands dirty, and let your words be those of Mary, who handed herself over, body and soul, to her Maker: 

“Behold, I am a servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Your loving sister in Christ,

Bethany J.

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*Maggie is an entirely fictional character. You might say she was me just a few years ago.

Scriptures for Further Study:

• 1 Cor. 6:19-20
• Eph. 2:10
• Titus 2:4-5
• 1 Cor. 3:16-17
• Rev. 19:7-8
• Ps. 27:4
• Rom. 12:1
• John 12:24
• Luke 1:38