taking care

Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Ruach ha-Kodesh who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 TLV

This verse makes me think of Ananias and Sapphira. (Acts 5) Glorify means "to ascribe value, esteem substantial". How does a person do this with/in the body?

Ruminating what it means to be a vessel of the Holy Spirit and a precious bearer of His image at the same time. Even not pregnant, I love encouraging sisters to receive the full inheritance of health; exponentially more impactful when participating in the miracle of pregnancy!

Have you ever heard someone tell you to “give yourself grace”? 

What does this mean? Are we a source of grace, that we could reach within, fill up and then pour it over our own minds and bodies? In some ways, it can be a phrase that enables women to thoughts of complacency, entitlement, selfishness, laziness. Is this who we want to be?

10 weeks with Oren at the Super

I think when we realize that we are receivers of the grace of Yah, we understand that we yield to His standards, not our own. We can submit to the yoke of Yeshua by this grace, and it’s not that we earn the right to be under the same yoke with the Sovereign of our very beings, it’s that we recognize that we are in a position of receiving HIS strength to identify and bear the correct load and weight, and not tugging alone.

We may be misinterpreting grace, if our version is placing us back into a yoke of slavery to what is bringing us down in the first place. 

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you prove what is that good and well-pleasing and perfect desire of Elohim.”

… “not idle in duty, ardent in spirit, serving the Master; rejoicing in the expectancy, enduring under pressure, continuing steadfastly in prayer;” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭2, 11‬-‭12‬ ‭TS2009‬‬

A few years ago The Word made clear to me that grace wasn’t about me getting my way, my desire—it was about receiving His capacity to do His desire, and do it wholly so that it brought even my being joy and pleasure. This is how integrity offers fullness. (John 4:34 Psalm 40:7-9 Hebrews 10:5-9)

Sometimes during pregnancy we can struggle with energy. I’ve had some pregnancies in which I challenged thoughts of lack with the Spirit, enabling me to receive what is truly good even when I didn’t feel like it, and I’ve had other pregnancies in which I made more excuses as to why I didn't need to do my best. 

This pit looks more inviting going in. The problem is, when I believe thoughts of lack such as "I don't have the energy because _____", I tend to give in to little temptations like not really trying to prepare Good Things with integrity of mind, I give myself an "out" from challenging forms of physical movement...and these actions compound as atrophy of mental and physical strength. This makes it ever harder to remain at full capacity of serving the Lord by carrying His creation.

The more we believe words that reveal that our confidence is in our own strength (and therefore live by our own lack), the less we have attention and access to the grace that provides perfect strength in the middle of that exact weakness. The crazy truth is that we are not subject to the limiting nature of earthly strength, when we are inhabited by the Spirit of Power. It's wild, but true!

The pit gets deeper, the more times we give ourselves a "way out" of the hard things. Grace isn't for the purpose of avoiding challenge, it's for the purpose of confronting them with a will that is stronger than ours. The kind of grace that we "give ourselves" is the kind that buries us in our own weaknesses.

Even aside from pregnancy, as I begin to tell myself that I don't have enough _____ for making a nourishing meal, the body I live in misses out on the grace that it would have poured into me. If this is already a habit of the mind, it's too easy to get down a road telling yourself (rather, believing the Thief) that you have a good reason to be "too tired" because you're "already running a marathon around the clock", (An especially "valid card" for those still up all night with a toddler and/or breastfeeding)...the taking of the route of less resistance will result in less strength. It's supposed to increase as pregnancy progresses, because the baby gets heavier. What happens when we lose heart and strength at the beginning, just when it begins to get more difficult?

All that time (and energy!) is spent digging ourselves into a pit of self-pity and entitlement that results in a lack of mental capacity or desire to even begin to build it back, because it had become a habit to dwell on weakness and depend on our own frail humanity.

What might happen if we submit these thoughts to the Authority of the Messiah? We are no longer slaves but empowered. When you hear "It's okay to just have crackers and cheese for lunch, that's all you have energy for"...realize that it might be an attempted robbery of future energy. Through the Spirit of Power and Truth, you might receive grace to go harvest some greens and saute them...or even scramble a couple eggs! His nature is completeness and this is what He wants for you, too.

I confess, those pregnancies in which I "gave myself grace" for the easy route, I did not feel my best at the end. They were the ones that I was so ready to be over with. What feels easier is not necessarily easier in truth. The ones in which I chose to focus on receiving strength and nourishment, to do my best, I enjoyed the pleasure of pregnancy most fully.

Idolatry is making ourselves slaves to visible resources. I do not mean to say that your routines will give you strength...only Abba does that. I mean to say that we can only receive His grace as long as we are willing to submit to what He calls best, even when it's hard on the flesh. My mindset (either under the authority of my own flesh/desire or the Holy Spirit) determines my physical posture, my physical posture determines my capacity for bearing a load, and recovering from birth with ease. Mindset can be the difference between a doughnut run habit and a freshly cooked, nourishing meal habit. The difference between making a cup of coffee in the afternoon and starting a batch of beet kvass! Between bending over with a baby on your back, or deep squatting to get the thing out of the base cabinet. Between habitual core engagement resulting in pelvic floor and core integrity, and the loss of these caused by sitting a lot. It's good to remember that our flesh does not tend toward holiness, toward uprightness. The Set-Apart ones are held to a higher standard, through and because of a higher capacity.

I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love,  so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love. Yes, may you come to know his love—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God, To him who by means of his power working in us is able to do so much more than we can ever ask for, or even think of: to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:16-21 GNTD

The first bite of this Good Thing is the scratchiest :)