Good morning…
“Mom, why are you completely naked?” my seventeen year old daughter’s voice shocked me into laughter. I had forgotten she was upstairs in bed, gifted with a free period before her day of school. While warm bath water was being drawn, I was lollygagging in the living room in my first birthday suit. Oh, how we surprised each other!
As my true self is exposed, I feel more at home in my bare skin. I am making peace with who I am, how I look, and the way God wired me to fulfill His purposes. From the brown hairs on my head to the small soles of my feet, more and more of me understands, “Wrapped in God, I have all I need.”
David Benner wisely says, “Body and soul contain thousands of possibilities out of which you can build many identities. But in only one of these will you find your true self that has been hidden in Christ for all eternity. Only in one will you find your unique vocation and deepest fulfillment. But, as Dag Hammarskjold argues, you will never fill this ‘until you have excluded all those superficial and fleeting possibilities of being and doing with which you toy out of curiosity or wonder or greed, and which hinder you from casting anchor in the experience of the mystery of life, and the consciousness of the talent entrusted to you which is your I.'” (p. 16, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery)
We all began like the first humans planted in life’s garden. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed or embarrassed (Genesis 2:25, AMP). To return to the joy of our original state, the Bible encourages: Earnestly remember your Creator before the silver cord [of life] is broken…then the dust [out of which God made man’s body] will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “All [that is done without God’s guidance] is vanity (futility)” (Ecclesiastes 12:6-8, AMP).
After taking our first breath and before breathing our last, we are invited to lollygag with the LORD, naked and unashamed.
…Sue…
