Today is my birthday. It is a day when I am remembering what a gift it is to be alive and how much deeper that gift is because of all the people I share my life with.

I am also moving into those middle aged years of life and have been reflecting quite a bit on what that means. I have been really reading and praying over Romans 12 and wanted to share with you some thoughts about different verses within that chapter beginning here with Romans 12: 1

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

From the time we are born to the time we die, we are immersed with messages about our bodies. I fear that an overwhelming number of these messages are negative or have a negative impact on how people feel about their bodies.

If the body doesn’t look a certain way, we despise it.

It the body doesn’t function a certain way, we resent it.

If the body isn’t honored and respected by others, we are ashamed of it.

But Romans 12:1, which occurs in a section entitled “New Life in Christ,” describes our bodies as holy and acceptable to God.

What if, every time we hear a negative message or see something that makes us feel less-than about our physical being, we remembered that our physical being is holy and acceptable to God?

I Invite you to think that way…to stop, rethink and replace those negative messages with one of love and grace–you, all of you, is holy and acceptable to God.