7 Lies Christian Women Believe About Their Bodies
POSTED BY
Chelsey Geisz
READ TIME
5 Minutes
As women, we hear many stories about our female bodies. We hear them in church and in the doctor’s office and on television. They have many variations:
1. Our natural bodies are ugly.
They must be starved, waxed, surgically enhanced, and masked with cosmetics just to meet baseline beauty standards.
2. Our bodies are gross or taboo.
We must hide our smells with fragrance and never mention our bleeding.
3. Our bodies are thoroughly sinful.
Our souls may be saved, but our bodies are still bad. Our natural desires are suspect. We must put the flesh to death by denying its desires at every turn.
4. Our bodies are painful.
It’s normal to experience agony each month on our period and during childbirth. Being a woman means living with continual physical discomfort.
5. Our female bodies are an image curated to be viewed by others.
We’re conditioned to look at our bodies as though it’s an image in a photo that will be viewed by others. If others like the image, we can trade it for love and attention. If they don’t, then our worth as a human is called into question.
6. Our bodies are unreliable.
Our hormonal fluctuations leave us feeling ecstatic one day and exhausted the next. These same fluctuations call our judgement into question and betray us as we strive for professional and academic achievement.
7. Our bodies are the enemy.
If we listened to the body’s desires for food, rest, intimacy, boundaries, and expression, our carefully controlled lives would spin out of control.
All of these stories are part of one larger story: the body is bad.
Jesus may save our souls, but our souls are still trapped in cages of sinful flesh.
Have you heard this story? Do you believe it?
Even as secular culture denies Jesus, it still embraces this story that the body must be harshly disciplined, starved, resisted, and exploited to achieve success. Our cultural heroes are able to deny their bodily needs so that they can work as much as possible while maintaining perfectly fit figures and luxurious lifestyles.
Their story—together with the story we often hear at church—goes like this: the will/intellect/spirit is good, and the body is bad. And if the male body is bad, the female body is even worse. It’s too bloody, too messy, too unpredictable, too sexual, too withdrawn, too moody, too mysterious.
This is an ancient heresy.
Good Christian theology opposes this heresy, which is called “Gnosticism”, at its core. Rather than designing the body as a sinful trap to test your virtue, God actually created your body to tell a very important story. You may not see it now, but your body is a prophesy that reveals God’s heart. And coded into the very essence of your female form is a liturgical rhythm designed to image God’s redemptive work while purifying, healing, and transforming your being with every monthly cycle.
[Read more about your sacred cycle here.]
Your female body is not accidental. Your hormonal fluctuations are God’s design. Your energy ebbs and flow for a reason. Your breasts, your womb, your fingers and arms and hair, your emotions, your blood—all of the female body was created on purpose.
If that’s true, then your female nature isn’t an obstacle to be repressed, ignored, or medicated away on the spiritual path. God has a plan for your life, and your feminine body and soul are key components of that plan.
The history of our faith has been directed by wise men who studied and experienced God from the vantage point of the male heart, mind, and body. Women’s spiritual experiences have often been viewed as valuable only for other women, and therefore the Christian tradition as a whole has not consistently benefited from the balancing effect of the female perspective. For this reason, many people now find Christianity barren and exclusionary.
It’s time to change that. Modern science and good theology argue that women are not just defective men. No, we are wholly different and powerfully necessary in that distinction. Certain strengths and virtues come naturally to us. We are at home in darkness and light, in blood and mascara stains, in laughter and warmth, in profound emotion and keen insight.
God didn’t create you to play small, numb your emotions, anesthetize your wounds, or starve your desires. It’s time to come home to yourself as a woman, and in doing so, step into the magnificent plans God has in store for you.
One of the best ways to heal your relationship with your body is by discovering the spiritual significance of your monthly cycle. Once you understand the way God created you to work, you can learn to flow with your body’s rhythm rather than fighting against it.
HI, FRIEND!
I'm Chelsey.
I believe that you were fearfully and wonderfully created in the image of God, and therefore, your body reveals divine truth. My calling is to help you step into the full, electric power of your female design to discover who God created you to be.
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