Friday nights...
Many people spend the weekends catching up on housework, yard work, cooking and cleaning. Weekends are for leisure time and sleeping in, right?
Oh, and when we were young, it was all about staying up late, hanging out with friends and letting loose after a week of school!
But I must say, this Friday night my son was hosting an LOTR marathon (Lord of the Rings for the uninformed like me!) at our house.  Starting at 6:30 pm, the marathon began and soon our family room was filled with many young adults all under 30.  My friend rescued me for a couple hours of shopping and Tim Horton's but I returned and thought I'd join the movie watching.
I made it through a half hour of the second movie and it was after 11 pm...way past my bedtime!
By midnight, I was searching for earplugs to block out the surround sound.
So much for my marathon!
And then up at 7:30 am on the Saturday morning.  When I could sleep in, I cannot!  Instead of relaxing, I was out for an early morning walk.  Then coffee on the new patio set while the rest of the young people were sleeping blissfully.
No, Friday nights are now a time for relaxing at home after a week of activity, not a time to get fired up!  And Saturdays are for catching up on work around home, not sleeping all day!
Don't get me started on Saturday nights!
How can these young people be up all Friday night and then do it all again Saturday night?
No, Saturdays are now time to prepare for Sunday morning worship service, be in p.j.'s early and get a good night's sleep!
Well, this is a Saturday night and I am okay with being middle-aged and free to go to bed early.  The cool thing is, all my friends are doing it, too!
See ya in church tomorrow morning!

What could be more important than writing for this blog?
Well, actually, quite a few things in life are more important than writing blog articles but to be specific, I have been preoccupied.  Traveling to a conference in Rock Nest Ranch Bible Camp, B.C. and then visiting missionaries and connecting with the Selke family in Edmonton and area.  And of course, once back home, Walter and I immediately threw our energies into preparations for our big anniversary celebration.
How did we prepare?
Walter spent several hours a day in the garage working on his 1928 Dodge Bros. sedan, hoping to have it running for June 1.
I bought groceries, planted annuals in pots and flower beds and cleaned the house.
Sometimes all our best laid plans don't come to fruition.
Sometimes the outcome has hidden blessings.
Our friend, Larry, is a heavy-duty mechanic.  He caught wind of Walter's project car and offered his services.  At first I thought it was just the obsession of these two guys to get this car done; then I realized Walter had really hoped to have it finished for Sunday so he could drive me to church for the renewing of our vows for our 25th anniversary.  I was so blessed and humbled to know of my sweetheart's desire to do something so special for me!  And that Larry would sacrifice his off-hours helping with the carburetor and other odds and ends that Walter needed.
Meanwhile, I was busy trying to get the yard spruced up.  We had been away when people are usually doing yard work and so I was behind! I got the last of the bedding plants in before the rain and was pleased with the results.  Then I moved indoors and planned the menu and the set-up for the BBQ.
Another blessing came in the form of our good friends, Don and Elaine, offering to come early and begin cooking the burgers and organizing the kitchen.  I was so happy to have that pressure taken off so we could enjoy our guests.
Saturday morning dawns and Walter and Larry race against the clock to have the Dodge starting and running without leaks.  Excitedly, Walter drives down the driveway and I run out to take pictures of this maiden voyage.  He motions and I jump in the car.  We sputter and start along Cormorant Drive, stall at the intersection but get going again on Jenkins Drive.  Kids run out and wave to us, men look in awe and ladies turn to look and then turn back to their tasks.  We made it back home but determine she's not running well enough to make it to church and back.
Sunday morning dawns grey and rainy.  All the work on the backyard seems in vain as we go to plan B-host the BBQ inside.  And I hadn't really done much housework.  Oh, well!  Soon enough, there will be so many people that they won't notice some dust and dirt.
The beauty of the day was those special moments in front of the church, with our children standing with us, as we spoke the vows to one another.  How blessed we are to have Pastor Bob lead us and pray with our leadership team over us!
Then after church, we rush home to our BBQ fired up, the kitchen well in hand and sixty-five people eventually filling up every available chair!  Relatives, friends and church family came to support us and celebrate with us.  We had plenty of food, delightful laughter and some special gifts.
The hidden blessings are really not so hidden as we realize we are rich with family and friends willing to cram into our home, some driving an hour or two in order to share in our special day.
The car wasn't quite ready; the weather did not cooperate.  But our celebration went on...
And so will we ~ for at least another 25 years!

I've been meditating on the glory of God lately.
Psalm 25 talks about the house where God's glory dwells...how the temple in Jerusalem was the home where the Presence of the Almighty lived.  When Solomon had completed the construction of the temple, he prayed a prayer of dedication and the glory of God descended in a visible way upon that temple.
But even in the Old Testament, the prophets and priests and people of God understood in part that the Holy One of Israel could not be contained in a man-made dwelling place.  He inhabited the heavens and the earth was His footstool.  His glory was so bright and pure that when Moses asked to see God's face, the Lord told Moses He would pass by but Moses had to hide in the cleft of a rock and not look directly at His presence.  Can we even comprehend such glory?
Yet, the glory of God is displayed in all creation, in the majestic mountains and pristine lakes.  His glory is reflected in the vastness of space and expanses not yet explored by humankind.  His glory is found in the minute and microscopic matter of the universe.
Ultimately, God's glory is reflected in us, as we are made in the image of our Maker.  Although stained by sin, we are His workmanship, created to give Him glory.
Such mysteries of divinity.
I long to know this God more, who is so glorious I cannot perceive Him with my eyes but He promises I can know Him with my heart.
"The heavens proclaim the glory of God..."  Psalm 19:1
And I will proclaim His glory, as shown through Jesus Christ His Son, a glory that is willing to come down in ultimate humility and surrender to save those He fashioned in His image.

Which brings me to the goal of having a good body image:  is it for our good only?  Is it about ‘us’?

Romans 12:1 is the truth that God wants us to be free in…”to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship.”

Our bodies are created to serve God and to bring Him honour.  How can we do that if we don’t even like ourselves and maybe even despise our bodies?  What if we are doing harmful things to our bodies and can’t seem to stop?  It seems impossible to offer our bodies to the Lord as an act of worship when we feel and behave like our bodies are curses or that our bodies are the centre of our attention?

I Corinthians 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 6:16 both say that our bodies are “a temple of the Holy Spirit”.  What does that mean?

*Spirit lives in us       *Bodies are clean      *Pure for worship

As a Christian, a child of God, we are saved.  Jesus has paid the price to purchase us as His own.  That means, He died to save not only our souls, the part that lives forever, but also our bodies so that they can serve Him in practical ways while we are on earth.  And when we die and our earthly tents are no longer needed, God will provide us with a heavenly body, like Jesus had after His resurrection, to serve Him in eternity.  (I Corinthians 15).  So our bodies are a significant part of who we are and Jesus has redeemed ALL of us as a person.

5.  What do I do?

I don’t want to leave you with some lofty thoughts and Bible verses and not know what to do about your body image if it isn’t healthy!

a.       Seek someone you trust and share your struggles

b.      Seek professional help if you are doing self-destructive behaviours

c.       Join a support group to help with issues

d.      See a doctor

e.      Find a church or Bible study to learn more about God’s Word and the Christian life

f.        Go deeper and get Christian counseling to replace the lies you have believed with the truth of God’s Word

g.      Be around positive people and build your closest relationships with those who are healthy, especially other believers in Christ who are growing in their faith

h.      Eat healthy, exercise, take care of your temple, get adequate rest, do fun things!

6.  Presentation of Mirrors – Romans 12:1

3.  Present Reality-

Now, back to our body image.  Why is it that we are not happy with how we look, how we are made?  What things do we do to mask our inner unhappiness and cope with our body image?

*dieting, fashions, make up, fitness, eating disorders, self-abuse (cutting), alcohol/drugs, living sexually promiscuous or hiding/denying our sexuality…

I want to share with you some of my own story and how I’ve struggled with my own body image.  As a little girl, I didn’t give too much thought to my looks or body type.  Until, my parents separated and then divorced.  That trauma set off a series of ugly events that scar me even today as a 47 year old woman. 

My mom moved in with a man who was very unhealthy.  He had a pornography addiction and had magazines and dirty joke books around all the time.  He was not discreet and I (and the other 3 children in the home) saw way too much for our young eyes!  Also, as I was growing up and entering into puberty, he would make comments about my changing body and I felt so ashamed and embarrassed.  I started to wear layers, old sweaters, and try to hide myself.  I felt ashamed about my femininity and began to think of sex and sexuality as dirty. 

Thankfully, mom saw this relationship and environment as dangerous to her two daughters and herself and we left there after five years.  Not soon enough.  The damage had been done.

I began going to a youth group in a new community when I was about 14.  God was drawing me to Himself and through the youth leader, I came to learn about Jesus and the message of being saved.  Praise the Lord, I accepted Christ just as I was going into highschool.  God spared me of a lot of heartache.  I dated a couple non-Christian guys, but fortunately, I learned that was wrong and a Christian guy from youth group asked me out. I learned more about healthy relationships and appropriate dating.

But just because I became a believer in Jesus didn’t mean my self-image and body image were automatically purified and changed!  I still battle with self-consciousness.  I do think a lot about my appearance and never seemed satisfied with looks, especially my hair.  Not sure why but that can become an obsessive focus that if my hair isn’t right, I feel yucky about myself in general! 

I know my own struggle with body image had to do with abusiveness, insecurity in my family situation, blaming myself for my parents’ problems and the pornography.  But there may be many other circumstances in life that set you on a path of self-hatred and loathing.  Verbal abuse; physical abuse; comparison to others or to the images the world offers as “perfect”. 

The ultimate force behind false body image is Satan.  He was a deceiver in the Garden and He is the same today.  He wants to destroy God’s creation.  Satan’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy.  Satan hates us and will go to any lengths to annihilate us!  He wants to destroy the image of God in us. 

4. Hope-

I remember discovering Psalm 139 when I was about 16.  Very powerful psalm, especially verses 13-16.  These words gave me life and hope that I was created by God, with His design and purpose.  It meant a lot to me to know I wasn’t a mistake, that I wasn’t marred or unclean somehow.  When I look in a mirror, I can recite those verses and see something good instead of the self-critical comments I used to make. 

It isn’t easy to undo the damage of abuse.  Maybe your story is different than mine.  But God longs to heal the ugly thoughts we have about ourselves and replace the lies with His truth.  The change doesn’t happen overnight.  In Romans 12, the Bible tells us that our minds need to be renewed, to change from the lies the world (and Satan) tell us.  This transforming & renewing of our minds is a spiritual battle and we can only have victory when we fight with God’s weapons and His power!

BODY IMAGE-“MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE” (Cindy M. Selke)

From the moment we were conceived, we have existed.

Who are you?  What identifies you as uniquely “you”?

When Connie first contacted me about possibly speaking and sharing in music for today, she had this idea for a topic that would touch women.  And I felt a little intimidated to speak about this particular subject. I don’t feel like much of an “expert” on BODY IMAGE but I knew it was from the Lord because within a short time, I was challenged about my own self-image and especially how my physical reality has affected how I view myself.

Our bodies are a significant part of who we are, how we identify ourselves.  We recognize each other by sight, by our appearance.  We do spend a lot of time taking care of our bodies because they need basic things like food, water, clothing, exercise, etc…

And if God says He loves me, then He means ALL of me, right?  Including my physical body.

So, what are some other names or terms we use to describe our bodies?

*Flesh, physical, tent, temple, figure, physique…

1.  Creation –

Genesis 1:26, 27 & 31 tell that God made the first human beings.  It was the 6^th day, and God had already taken 5 days to create the heavens and the earth.  He had water, land and vegetation all set in place.  God placed various living creatures to inhabit the land and sea.  And then we come to these verses in Genesis Chapter 1:

Maybe you have already read or heard this before, but what I find fascinating is that God, who is invisible and a Spirit, created us in His image, which included a body.  We are a reflection of Him, who is perfect, and somehow our physical image reflects Him.

And remember in verse 31, the Word of God says He saw all that He had made and it was very good.  Let’s hang on to that truth as we continue on…

Genesis 2:7  gives another description of how our Creator formed Adam, with a bit more detail.  Both the physical creation (dirt) and the spiritual (God’s breath of life) were combined to form the first man. 

Genesis 2:20-23 gives the details of Eve’s creation.  Why did God choose to create us in this way?  Why not just make a couple of mud pies, one male and one female, and breathe into our souls His life?  Many scholars have speculated on this but I won’t for today!

What we can learn from this account is that God made us unique as women. 

And to finish the creation account, verse 25 states, “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”  Adam and Eve were created perfectly as the Father desired.  Their forms were beautiful; they were a reflection of the image of God.  That is powerful!

2.  The Fall -

I hate to go on to Genesis Chapter 3 but we must.  This will explain  why we are the way we are today!  Why do we struggle with our body image?  Especially as women?

Genesis 3 tells us of how the serpent (the devil) deceived Eve (and Adam) and they disobeyed the Lord, their God.  Once they ate of the forbidden fruit, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked…”

Because we ALL are sinners, since sin entered the world through Adam & Eve’s disobedience, now we ALL have our eyes opened to our nakedness, our shame.  And just like Adam & Eve, we try to cover up our shame with “fig leaves”, which don’t really cover us at all!  Our minds, our understanding have been twisted by sin and we don’t see anything the way God sees!

Later in this chapter, the consequences for their sin are pronounced and both Adam & Eve have curses on them.  Adam’s consequences are to have to work so hard to support himself and his family and life as a man would be hard!  For Eve, her difficulty in childbearing would be painful and she would struggle against her husband (or men or authority).  Men and women would never live together in that perfect harmony of the Garden of Eden. 

Wow!  How depressing!  Cindy, sit down already!  We’re all completely discouraged now with our lot in life!  But wait-Genesis 3:21 gives us the hope we need!

This provision of animal skin garments points us to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, to take away our sins!  Hebrews 9:22 confirms this:  that “ without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin”.  That is why the fig leaves were not adequate to clothe Adam and Eve-it was their own attempt to hide/cover their shame.  God has a better way!

What do you think is normal?
I would like to imagine what most people consider a normal weekday routine:
alarm rings, get up, have a shower, have coffee and breakfast and head off to work.
Work consists of a start time, a lunch break, coffee break and quitting time.
When "normal" people get home, they have supper and unwind, or maybe race off to their children's sports and activities.  Maybe they have meetings for their church or community organizations they participate in or provide leadership for...
For us, a week usually begins with Monday as our day off.
Tuesday, we go to a breakfast meeting with the other Healing Hearts leadership to discuss issues and set calendar items.
But on any given day, we might get a call and be off to visit someone in the hospital.
Or give a ride to a medical clinic.
Or have a coffee arranged from Sunday at church just to get together.
Or have a counseling session on the phone or even on Facebook chat sometimes.
Two weeks ago, we found out on a Saturday, our missionary in La Ronge, Saskatchewan (Bigstone First Nation), had passed away.  So our co-worker left Sunday morning to travel there and help support the family and make funeral arrangements.  We left for La Ronge on Tuesday morning and arrived to help participate in the wake and funeral.  Those events took a full 36 hours, not including the travel time...we slept in a hotel, ate at local restaurants and at the wake and funeral where meals were graciously provided.  We didn't practice music for the wake service-our coworkers did the "winging it" strategy.  Walter had come to support and encourage and ended up M.C. at the wake and funeral because the pastor got laryngitis!
Because we had not taken the Monday off, we decided to take the long way home and spend an extra day in Saskatoon, just to relax and unwind after the intensity of ministry and personal grieving.
Angus was our friend, not just our co-labourer in Christ.
His family is on our hearts and we long for their comfort.
Then, this past weekend, we celebrated the wedding of our missionary, Scott to Laura, here in Regina.  What great joy to witness their vows and attend the event with little responsibility.  We were guests! We also hosted another missionary family with two toddlers for the weekend, who traveled in for the wedding, plus our single missionary, Joni, from Loon Lake, SK.  So while making meals for 5 extras, plus getting ourselves ready for the wedding festivities, we also had Sunday service preparations to make.  Kinda crazy!
From deep mourning, to joyful celebration, to mundane chores to spiritual ministry, that has been our normal!
There are times when I long for what I look at as predictable schedule and expected routines.  But then we wouldn't have the rich diversity of relationships, the freedom to take a day off on a Thursday or the delight of ministry moments in life, and even death, that are part of our "job".
No, I consider myself and our family very blessed by the Lord in what He gives us as "normal"!