If you’re a woman of a certain age, born in the 70s, you may have noticed that your social media feed is filled with advice about navigating what used to be called “The Change” aka menopause. It’s a hot topic right now, and I will not apologize for that pun. One click on a Stacey Sims video on YouTube will immediately alert the algorithm to feed you content about protein, lifting heavy, and the use of hormone replacement therapy. As I drive around the Atlanta suburbs, I see more and more people, mostly women, walking around with weighted vests. Get together with your 50 something female friends and the topic will invariably drift toward how to get better sleep or how to avoid putting on those extra pounds.

Women’s bodies go through many changes as we mature, bear children, and then get older. We may feel disoriented and out of control, like our bodies just won’t do what we want them to do, or look the way they used to look. The culture takes advantage of our discontent and, dare I say, hatred of our bodies to sell us things, to deny we’re getting older, to convince us that there’s this one secret to unlock or hack our metabolism and once we find it, then we’ll be like our pre-pregnancy, pre-menopausal selves.

What kind of relationship do you have with your body? Do you hate it? Is it your enemy? Does the number on the scale in the morning determine your self-worth and your mood for the rest of the day? What thoughts run through your mind when you look at yourself in the mirror? Do these questions make you squirm?

I thought I had a pretty healthy self-image until I got cancer. The loss of hair, the loss of body parts, and the sudden onset of menopause exposed the vanity that was always lurking underneath. That idol had been largely hidden and suppressed until my usual ways of managing and controlling my body’s appearance – running, tweaking my diet here and there – no longer worked. I used to joke that I ran so I could eat and that worked until it didn’t.

There are at least two dangers in how we treat our bodies. One is to dissociate from them, believing the lie that they don’t represent the real us. What’s real is what’s on the inside. What’s real is the identity I have constructed apart from my appearance. What’s real is how I feel. The other danger is to make our bodies an idol, the ultimate DIY project. If you have enough money and time, you can buy all the products and invest all your extra time with a personal trainer, nutrition coach, and other wellness experts in order to slow down the inevitable decline.

My pastor recently preached on Romans 12:1-2 which says:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Why does Paul say bodies? Wouldn’t it be more spiritual to say offer your souls? That question reveals a hidden gnosticism, a belief that Christianity has fought for centuries. The gnostics believed that the body was a prison house for the spirit. They looked down on the material world and emphasized the freedom human beings would achieve once they were separated from their bodies. But Christianity pushes back here and teaches the dignity of the whole person – body and soul. The fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and the truths contained in 1 Corinthians 15 point to the goodness of our physical bodies. Paul says in verse 49 of that chapter, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” The man of heaven is Jesus Christ, who lives forever as the God-man. We will receive glorified bodies just like his.

When my pastor preached on offering our bodies as living sacrifices I teared up. I knew that the Lord was putting his finger on something I have been struggling with for a long time. Offer this body? The body I struggle to accept and, if I’m honest, sometimes hate? What would it look like to offer this body to the Lord as a living sacrifice, the body that doesn’t look the way I want, the body ravaged by cancer, the body that doesn’t have the shape it used to? Will I continue to go through life silently resenting it? Or in offering this body to God as a living sacrifice, can I get free of the hatred? Of the near constant fight against it, to make it what I want it to be?

The Lord has given us our bodies. He has crafted them and designed them down to the smallest detail. The incarnation proves that God is not against the body. He loves our bodies. And he has condescended in love to indwell our bodies with his Holy Spirit!

What would it look like if Christian women believed this instead of the lies of the world? What might happen if Christian women started expressing thanksgiving for their bodies instead of contempt? These are questions I want to keep asking.