Your Body Is An Instrument Of Forgiveness

If you’re like most people, you probably wish you weighed something different than you weigh now.  Maybe you wish you were thinner.  Maybe heavier.  Maybe you don’t like your body because it has weaknesses.  Maybe your joints don’t work correctly or they ache regularly.  Maybe you’re a young person, and you wish your natural proportions were different.  Most people want to change something about their body.  Maybe all those feelings and longings are valid and healthy.  Maybe some of them are not.  I don’t know.  But what I do know is this:  For almost all people, our bodies work tirelessly, almost magically, as incredibly sophisticated instruments of forgiveness.

Many people, after reading the title to this post, may have thought, “Oh, this is going to be about how the body fights of germs, bacteria, and viruses – factors that are foreign and outside the body.”  While the body is truly amazing at fighting off foreign elements, that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

Have you ever considered how careful you are about what fuel you put into your car?  How specialized is it?  How filtered and processed is it?  How narrowly defined are those fuels?

Now think of how many, literally thousands, of chemical compounds, natural or artificially synthesized, your body has had to identify, sort, filter, and edit out over the last month?

Look at just a few food labels of the food and drinks in your pantry.  How does the body know what to do with Red No. 5, Sucralose, or carrageenan?  Who is the stage manager in your stomach that identifies, separates, labels, and sends each compound in the correct direction?

Have you ever stopped to think of the hundreds of mistakes you’ve made, when you’ve chosen to ingest foods or drinks that were almost completely artificially assembled?

The next time you’re criticizing your body for one thing or another, remember how it works thanklessly to forgive you for all the crap and complexity you throw into it.  You have one body.  Every day, your body does work to forgive you for foolish decisions you’ve repeatedly made.

Before you complain about your weight, proportions, pains, or features, be kind to your body.  Be careful about how much you ask it to do for you.  Don’t ask it to do more than any body can be expected to do.  Be grateful for what it has regularly done to make up for your mistakes.  Your friends and peers would probably not forgive you as often as your body has forgiven you. 

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The  artwork atop this post is by Daniel Southard.

© All rights reserved by Daniel Southard.

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Category : Health, Love, Therapy