Listen

But as it is, there are many parts but one body. So the eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” Instead, the parts of the body that people think are the weakest are the most necessary. The parts of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we honor the most. The private parts of our body that aren’t presentable are the ones that are given the most dignity. The parts of our body that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor so that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might have mutual concern for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts celebrate with it.

1 Corinthians 12:20-26

Think

This passage is a great reminder that it’s important to love every part of yourself in order to be able to love others well. This can sometimes be tricky to do, but God calls us to honor our body, and honoring your body includes loving parts of you that may be hard to love.

As the passage says, when one part of us suffers, we suffer with it. If we spend so much of our energy disapproving of the body we have been given, it will be difficult to celebrate other parts of our bodies as well.

And so it is in the body of Christ – when we are able to love ourselves well, it helps us to love others in our community well. Through both times of celebration and times of suffering, Christ calls us to be together as a community through it all.

Milligan Burroughs

Pray

God of Love,

You have created me in your image. You have made me wonderfully.

Help me to see myself as you see me, and help me to better impact my community because of it.

Amen.

Go

We are one in the Spirit;
we are one in the Lord.
And we pray that all unity
may one day be restored.
And they’ll know we are Christians
by our love, by our love.
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love!

from “They’ll Know We Are Christians” by Peter Scholtes (1966)