fearfully and wonderfully made

Psalm 139:14a “I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

I’ve heard a lot of thoughts on what this verse means--though considerably less on the “fearful” than on the “wonderful.” I think the explanation that has stood out to me the most was one I heard during a podcast by Ravi Zacharias on a fairly unrelated topic; he gave equal attention to both of these words and his explanation was profoundly simple. When I heard it, I tucked it away in my "box of pearls." Ravi explained this verse something like this: We are fearfully and wonderfully made; the care and complexities of a body’s ability and design to function is utterly filled with wonder...and yet, the reality that the smallest of organisms, unseen by the human eye, can take it out makes it equally fearful.

If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you’ve most likely heard me talk about Psalm 139; it is the first passage of scripture that I memorized by choice after becoming a believer. Over the last 12 years the Lord has brought me back to it at deep, identity-shifting times; it is as though I am tethered by its stability and no matter where life moves me, I cannot go beyond its reach. The Lord brought me to this passage the other day, and it has had a profound impact on my heart. I am going to attempt to tell you about it.

I have found myself in a pivotal place because I have a question. The way I answer this weighty question has the power to determine my future perception of my life and whether I will walk in it as a whole person or a divided person. It is deeply important that I take the time to answer the question that the Lord has graciously bought completely into the light (I know I have bumped into it before) and to the forefront of my mind:

Of what value is my body?

We are, when whole and undivided, at peace in body, soul and spirit. I have never doubted the Lord’s care for nor the importance of the soul or the spirit, but when it comes to the body, I have wrestled continually with questions of the Lord's care for and the value of my body. I do believe that scripture would say that, “Yes, He does care about the physical body.” However, it is more important that the soul and spirit are healthy than that the body is. So while I have answered portions of my quandary, I am still left with this question that I have to resolve because if I do not, I will continue to walk through this life as a divided person, unable to usher others into wholeness, because I have been unable to reconcile my body with myself.

So a couple of days ago I brought this question before my Creator. I sat down with Him and His word and asked Him to show me one way or another: Does MY physical body have any value?

You might think this is a silly question (I probably ask a lot of those), but as someone who has spent her entire adult life battling chronic health issues and discovered that her coping mechanism is to completely dissociate with her physical body, as someone who grew up being told and shown that this body was just a shell carrying us from this life to another, as someone who learned to see the beauty in humans that has nothing to do with their outward appearance while being shaped by the lives of her handicap brothers, this question would more fittingly be described as tragically honest because I just turned 35-years-old last week and I hate my body--it has failed me 10,000 times, it has wreaked more havoc on me than any other thing, at times it has felt like pure torture to be connected to it. And that breaks my heart, because it is 1/3 of myself, and I have basically been in a civil war for years and the casualties have added up.

I opened my bible to Genesis, and began at the creation of man. I heard the purposeful decision in the Lord’s voice as I read “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” (Gen 1:26–28) I wondered at Yahweh’s hands personally forming the first human out of the dust and imagined what it must have looked like when He breathed His own breath into this creation so that it shared in His life for the first time. (Gen 2:7) I found purpose for this creation of body being “formed” and “made” in the book of Isaiah: To bring glory to the Lord (43:7), to declare praise (43:21) and to be His servant (49:5). And then the Lord brought Psalm 139:13–16 to mind, and when I read the words of verse 14, tears filled my eyes and I knew, “There it is.” These 10 words hold within themselves the answer to whether my broken body has value and purpose: It is not just in the perfection of a body adhering to its design to function that displays the mighty work of the Lord, mercifully it is also in the body’s utter frailty and fallibility that the might and wonder of the Lord is seen.

It is only in the fearful wonder of the careful Designer’s mighty and meek hands that I will find the ability to reconcile my whole person.

And the fact that the answer to my question is “yes” and that this is accompanied with the promise that the pursuit for wholeness will end in victory, I find myself repositioned onto a path of hope and peace.