A resurrected body

 1 Corinthians 15:38–43, 47–49, 58 
“But God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”

“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” 

I have spent a lot of my life hating my body; it wasn’t just the way it looked, it was its propensity to failure, its inability to hold onto health or to gain it, the way it brought me emotional and physical pain, the many steps it lagged behind, how hard I had to work to gain an inch just to lose a mile the next day. I spent years beating it up; verbally degrading it for its inability to catch up or to keep up, physically trying to whip it into shape with every tool at my disposal. Empty hands and helplessness my only tokens of thanks.

I fought the hatred, I really did. I worked hard to associate with it, I repented, I learned to speak kind words to it, I forced myself to look at it, I sought the truth of its forming on the pages of scripture and came out of agreement with the lies I spoke over it. But my steps in victory couldn’t seem to remove the underlying loathing.

I have learned over time that the Lord is very careful and intentional in the order in which He walks us toward healing, so my cries didn’t stop until finally the Lord gave an answer to my continued desperate pleas for His help. He said, “It is time,” and carefully walked me back through my life and showed me that my health problems directly related to my trauma; with the loss of each brother, my body internalized the separation of death with separations of its own. The burden of the emotional tax weighed on my physical body and caused it to stagger. He led me down the paths of my sorrows and showed me that it was not the failure of my body that was displayed, but its endurance. Bent and broken was the heart, and the body that contained it followed suit.

The hatred fell off as the wall of enmity that created separation between my body, soul and spirit crumbled. A spirit of compassion washed my eyes, and turned my heart toward my body instead of against it. And we began out walk toward healing as one who has been made whole.

And that’s been a unique journey for me, to live without loathing. My body recovers from exercise differently; there is no insistence on results, only hope for wellbeing, the freedom to fail, and the willingness to seek help; the desire has changed to kindness, instead of cure.

I’m writing this because the Lord showed me another layer to build upon in pursuit of this healing.

I’ve often found comfort in the idea of shedding this body some day; to leave behind the broken pieces and metaphorically “wipe my hands of it.” But I was reminded in a sermon recently that Jesus has a body…that in His resurrected form, He has a physical body and so will I. And that is good. A truth I have not considered. It also stood out to me that even though His physical body had been made new, He chose to keep His scars. And that also is good.

It forces me out of my relief of future separation from what has caused me to struggle in this life (specifically, my physical body) and into the consideration of what it means to remain united with it. Do I believe that is good and why?

Because it’s true, the resurrected Jesus had a physical body, and it was His physical resurrected body that is lifted up as evidence of His identity and of the fulfillment of His purpose. The scars declared the truth of His suffering and of His victory, and were offered up for the faith of His followers. His physical body ate fish His disciples had prepared, and his physical hands built fires to prepare fish for them; His physical and pierced-through feet walked down the road beside His people and His physical mouth expounded to them the scriptures. In the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension, we are given a glimpse into what it looks like for a human being to be raised from the dead to eternal life.

So what if in eternity my perfected body still testifies of what it has endured? What if the evidence remains, not for pain but for glory? What if the suffering is not forgotten, but instead carried without lament? What if my twisted fingers remains twisted even as they find themselves able to play instruments and make pottery in the city of God?

I have learned from His word that the goodness of who He has made is not lost with our losses or tarnished by our corrosion; I have also learned that His goodness in our losses and corrosions are what shape us into the followers we are today. And perhaps these emerging layers will find that their paths lead to Hebrew 2:10, “For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in the bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Perhaps the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony will be presented upon our physical body that bears the evidence of imperfection being resurrected by Perfect love. Perhaps the Lamb spoken of in the book of Revelation who stands as “one who has been slain” will be looking out over His blood-bought people, standing also as ones who have once known death. 

To be resurrected is not be erased and to be recreated without blemish. It is to be restored to life…but resurrected life bears the evidence of the fires of earth, the crucible in which the dross of a broken life gives way once more to His image. His feet of burnished bronze are left bare upon the streets of heaven; His blood soaked robes royal enough to be worn when He sits upon His white horse and returns upon the wind; the scars upon His hand no hindrance to the holding of His scepter, but are the very things that bear witness to His right to lift it. 

He makes all things new. And that is good. But even the new will bear witness to what has been. And that is very good.

There’s got to be healing in these thing, may I lay hold of it as they settle in me.

Vulnerability in a new season

I gave my first lecture at BSF this week. I keep tearing up when I think about it, and so here I am, awake on the couch in the middle of the night because apparently it is time to write down my thoughts.

I entered into a new season this year; when I spent January asking the Lord what to do next, He handed me some new, unexpected assignments and reordered my life so that I could do what He asked of me. My children went off to school, and I stepped into two main things: He gave me women to pray and intercede with weekly, and He called me to be a substitute teaching leader at BSF. The former is an answer to a deep longing of my heart, the latter is…well, I’m still wrapping my mind around it because it’s new and unexpected and feels almost comical a role to be placed in.

Let me explain, the women in BSF are the same women who helped “raise me up” like sweet spiritual mother voices when I taught the students there 4 years ago; they’re faithful and wise and precious; some have walked with Jesus longer than I’ve been alive. If you looked through resumes to pick the most qualified person to fill this role, I’d be at the bottom of the pile. But Jesus tends to pull from the bottom of the pile, so here I am…brand new and learning on the job. And they’re helping me…and really, it’s probably the most biblical display of womanhood that I’ve ever been a part of; seeking Jesus together as we walk in obedience to what He called us to do, learning what it means to depend on Him for all things.

There’s the snap shot of my new season, and in it, I gave my first lecture. And I want to tell you why I keep crying when I think about it.

People only see me as I am today; depending on how long we’ve walked together or how many cups of coffee we’ve shared, you may know more or less of the experiences that shaped me. Maybe you were there through my joys and my losses, or maybe you’ve heard me process them, or maybe you have no idea what mountains I’ve climbed, what rocky ground I’ve crawled across, what stones have been hurled at me. While some of those experiences equipped me for my current assignment, others add an extra layer of vulnerability to it.

When I was growing up, I learned 3 lessons (spoken or implied, they settled in deep and took residence in my thinking): 
1) I had nothing to bring to the Body of Christ because I was female.
2) If I did have the audacity to bring anything to the Body, it would inevitably cause harm.
3) No matter how valuable, no one would want what came from me.

Obviously these are not so much lessons as they are lies. But it took me well over 30 years to even believe I was worth the full value of a human, so they had no problem finding ground to grow in me. What is interesting, is they didn’t produce someone with “self-esteem” problems, so to speak. I actually like me; I enjoy being who I am, I make myself laugh, I like the way I see the world, I enjoy the things I write, I am genuinely content with my quirks and ok with acknowledging my weaknesses. Instead, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life hidden under years of paint and mud wearing a coat of lament that no one would be willing to take the time to search me out. 

But Jesus washed me, and dignified me, and told me the truth again and again…and for years, I’ve learned to walk obediently and without expectation.

But it’s the “without expectation” part that He’s been slowly dissolving…and I think that’s why I feel so vulnerable in this season. Because I can see His intention and it carries expectation…and that feels terrifying to me.
It feels risky.
It feels vulnerable.
It feels uncomfortable.
It feels like I’d much rather crawl back into the prayer closet because I know I’m safe there.

I know that the Lord moves when He has me speak in front of people. 
And to me, the weight of that is staggering.
Maybe after reading the lessons I learned above you can understand why.

I am a woman, but my hands are not empty.
I would rather never speak than cause another spiritual harm.
And I am who and what God made me and nothing more.

The thing is, when we hear people share their thoughts on scripture from the front, we only see what they offer to us…we don’t watch how that offering was gathered. So I can sit in front of a group to share, and they hear the carefully prepared words I wrote on a page…but they didn’t see how I found those words, they don’t know where I traveled to gather them, they didn’t watch me wrestle and dance with the Lord for understanding. They only see the offering. And that is ok, because that part was FOR them; but let us never look at the offering of another and overlook the fact that there was preparation, that we are looking at the fruit of another’s labor.

After my first Ephesians study several years ago (which was the first time I ever invited women to listen to my thoughts on scripture in the way that I am shaped to speak it), I had someone who hadn’t come ask me to give them what I had written. And I surprised myself by saying, “No.” To one woman I looked like a person casually talking about scripture in their living room, but I was actually a person shaking off 3 lessons I learned; speaking out loud to others in my living room felt like stepping out of the boat in the middle of a storm to walk on water. I felt such vulnerability that the Lord had gone before me and set several friends beside me to physically steady my steps.

The Lord gave me this dream at that time: http://bigandlittlewords.blogspot.com/2023/06/consumers-or-contributers.html
In this dream, I am the mother camel.

I have been thinking about that dream, about my vulnerability, and about the women God has set beside me in THIS season to steady my steps. And while I tear up for multiple reasons, that’s the main one. These faithful women heard my words, but they also see my person; they covered me in prayer, they encouraged me, they tended to my needs…and afterwards, they gathered me in. They make me feel safe, like they will keep me tucked under their wings while I gather strength in my legs. 

At the heart of it, expectation is brand new to me. It brings with it the vulnerability of being consumed; if not by others, than by self or by the enemy. And so my faith must grow and stretch as I cling to Jesus…but today I just wanted to write down that I am grateful for the women I serve alongside.

He's faithful to redeem.

 Almighty Weaver
©7-4-2025 hannah mclean

Almighty Weaver
i rest in Your hands
You who made mountains
You who formed man
Almighty Weaver
the Maker of parts
only Your love can 
join body and heart

Your blood binds what’s broken
and makes new what’s old
Your love falls on ashes
and brings forth the gold
Your truth walks through prisons
and unlocks the doors
Your hands lift the least of these
making them more

Almighty Weaver
redemption’s Your way
You bring dead to life 
and You turn night to day
You see beyond moment
call forth what will be
in the land of the living
Your goodness i’ll see

Broken heart and broken body

“The body keeps the score,” they say.

Of course it makes sense. The failures of my body trace with striking clarity to loss. And it makes sense that when the heart breaks, the body breaks also.

As a child, this body carried its first coffin; a coffin filled with the empty, frail body of a brother who was loved. The same hands that had wrapped around the handle picked up a shovel too big for its 7-year frame and put dirt onto his grave. The ears that used to listen for his voice heard instead the dirt falling onto a cement vault echo in the sudden silence.

As a teenager, this body walked beside the second coffin; cradling the hearts and well-being of the little siblings that carried it with their own tiny hands. Another piece of my heart—loved more deeply than I have ever loved another because now I understood loss—shut inside a wooden box that swayed beside me. And again, these hands picked up a shovel and mixed my tears with the dirt.

This adult body carried the third coffin; the nine of us together, but still it felt too heavy for a body worn by grief. It shoveled dirt onto the grave of a man I never got to know, locking the little brother I loved in time where he would rest further and further behind me as I had to keep living. 

This body wrapped its family in arms and absorbed the tears that were poured out on its shoulders. It sang songs to comfort and to remember. It lent its voice and back to the bent and broken, stood up tall when others couldn’t and clung to the ground while others stood for me. These eyes have looked upon lifeless bodies of ones I loved and watched sorrow pulsing through the living bodies of ones I love…and still they choose to see. 

And what body could bear up under all that? 

Not mine. Death is separation, and my body physically internalized every death, dividing under the weight of grief. The infirmity that entered as a child wedged its way into the picture of my well-being and marked me; the infirmity that entered as a teenager waged its war alongside the first; the infirmity that entered as an adult severed the cord that tied the body and soul together…leaving this body a crippled thing, limping through life alone, longing for connection to the heart it carried.

And that is what the Lord is restoring right now; the unity between a body and soul severed by trauma. For the first time, there is peace as my soul reaches out its own healed hand to lift my body with it to new life.

on the path of healing

unwoven
©6-26-2025 hannah mclean

my body housed
its broken heart

burdened by the weight of loss
it could not bear up
cracking beneath it

and when hands could only hold
one thing together
it chose the soul
while the body fell aside
in a heap of rubble

i’ve walked hand in hand
with my broken heart
i’ve watched as Holy Hands
gathered every piece
that fell along the road of suffering
and mended me back together
and it is well
with my soul

but i have never walked hand in hand
with my broken body

no
 

my fists have pounded upon its bruises
my feet have kicked its aching back
my mouth has torn it apart
as it lay in the dust
shame and blame and disdain
covering it in heaps and mounds
undignified and stripped of worth
while all it ever longed for
was compassion

years have passed
i’ve looked at it again and again
from a safe distance
i’ve learned to draw near even though it hurts
i’ve renounced my curses and
chosen to bless
i’ve shoveled off years of shame
and unburdened it of decades of blame
and fought disdain
and fought disdain again
i’ve told it the truth
fearfully and wonderfully made
by design not function
i’ve even mustered compassion
from time to time

but i remain
a weaving too long upended
the strands still too mixed up within the debris
of too many storms
over too many years
to find their way back together

because my body housed
its broken heart

and only one has been made well

His holy ways

“He also made the lampstand of pure gold. He made the lampstand of hammered work. Its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers were of one piece with it.” Exodus 37:17

Your lampstand

©4-2-2025 hannah mclean

 

let me be Your lampstand
hammered, yes
for that is Your holy way
but sanctified in the working
drawing out beauty
in Your careful markings
for function and for delight

but also pure gold and
one piece
unbroken by the force of the blows required
for base and stem and cups
for filling and for fire

let me be Your lampstand
fitted for light
a vessel for worship
for drawing and
for burning

behold, Father,
my stems stretch forth for You
hard fought for oil fills my cups
may Your holy fire burn upon me
drawing other to Your light
and to Your life

may my eyes see the care
of Your shaping

may my heart find joy
in the emergence of details
drawn forth in my forming

may i not overlook the wonder
of the purifying

may worship pour forth to You
as the light of Your Spirit’s presence
shines in and through me

let me be Your lampstand
for Your glory

A moment of decision.

1 Kings 13:8–9a And the man of God said to the king, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place, for so was it commanded me by the word of the Lord…”

I keep thinking of this passage I taught on in children’s church the other day. The kingdom of Israel had just been divided, and Jeroboam, a man who had been a servant of King Solomon, is suddenly lifted up by the Lord and placed into the position of king over 10 tribes of Israel. But in spite of the promise of God that He would put an eternal blessing on Jeroboam as king if he’d walk with Him, this new king went rapidly and devastatingly wayward and led the people of Israel into an idolatrous, heretical lifestyle far from God. 

And the Lord is great in mercy; as He did repeatedly in the times of the kings of Israel, He sent a prophet to Jeroboam in his decent into wickedness to call him back to the path of righteousness. But King Jeroboam didn’t receive the word, instead, he tried to use the power he had as king to harm the man of God, and God would have none of it. In an instant, He stripped him of his power even as he stretched out his hand, drying up the authority of his voice raised against the Lord. Then when Jeroboam had been restored through the prayer of the prophet on his behalf, instead of repenting, he looked at the prophet…and invited him to come home with him and partake in the pleasures of his earthly kingdom.

I love how this prophet looked back into the eyes of this king—this king who had chosen wickedness and forfeited the blessing of the Lord for the confidence of his own control and construction—and said, “No. I want nothing to do with the kingdom you are building; I want no part in the best you have to offer, nor will I even take a portion of the least of what you could set before me. You have made your choice, and I have made mine.”

There’s something about this moment of decision that feel so important right now.