For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13-14
It was deep in a dark February night—the very wee hours, when I woke with pain that made me panic. I was sleeping on the couch in my parent’s basement after a hospital stay for a set of worsening GI symptoms. All too familiar with these middle-of-the-night agonies, I shuffled, bent double, to the bathroom. But this was worse than even my worst—this pain was shredding through the inside of my already weakened body and I was afraid. I groaned for my parents, feeling sure that I was about to pass out, or die, or both.
After several hours of agony, moving between a blanket on the bathroom floor and the toilet, I was finally able to settle again on the couch. Exhausted, terrified and confused, I chose a song on my phone and set it to repeat, letting lyrics based on the Psalm above ease my shaking body into sleep.
It’s been four and half years since that night and that song and the morning that did eventually come. Those hours of torment were only one chapter in a long journey of making peace with my body. Along the way, with the support of my parents and friends, I’ve worked to understand nutrition and physiology—trying every diet from gluten free to dairy free to the wild restriction of chicken and rice, then to formula that kept me from wasting entirely away, before settling into more flexible eating with the help of a dietician. It’s been exhausting to learn and relearn how to eat, but the effort has paid off with the most stable health I’ve ever experienced.
In the darkest moments of my early twenties, when I thought I might never be able to eat again without the help of a feeding tube, I considered carefully the precarious nature of our alive-ness. At the end of the day, we’re all just little creatures who need to eat. There was incredible grief in knowing that meals and satiety may not be a part of my future—grief that pressed close and made it hard to breathe.
So when, with the help of doctors, and research, and God’s providence, I got food back, I vowed to treat every bite as the incredible gift that it is. I was woefully underweight after eighteen months of virtual starvation, so set to work providing my body with the calories it so desperately needed. And my body began to change.
Ribs faded, skin didn’t hang from my collar bones, and I filled my pants with curves again. So many kind people shared how healthy I looked, and I searched in their comments for some guidance about what this body of mine is supposed to be. After being medicated and prodded and tossed about by the tempests of my body, I was completely confused about what healthy even meant, much less what it’s supposed to look like in the mirror.
It’s been easy (and appropriate I think) to feel that health for me is a life with minimal pain, satisfying meals, and the energy to fully and independently build my life. But as my body grew and changed, almost in a second puberty, I struggled to adjust to what I was seeing and feeling—is this really my body? Is this what it’s supposed to look like?
The internet is no help of course, and when I voiced any uncertainty or question, it was met with concern that after not eating at all, I could consider limiting food or trying to lose weight. I too wondered if anguish over needing new pants was a manifestation of a deeper lack of gratitude. There are so few steadying voices in the world, and I was aching for help and clarity as I wrestled with the shifting sands of a body I no longer knew and was working hard to trust.
After many months of silently trying to make sense of these changes, I finally sought professional guidance. I think we expect to be able to intuit the best ways to care for our bodies, as if the user manual is etched in our bones. Sometimes I think we can, especially if we pay attention and listen closely. Sometimes though, I think we need help from others who have spent years gaining body-knowledge and who want to help.
Before the first meeting with my new health coach, I thought deeply about what I really want. I want to eat well and with joy. I want to feel satiated and delighted by food every day. I want to feel strong. I want to support my digestive system using the many tools I’ve gained through years of struggle. I want food to be properly ordered in the wide context of my life. I want to move my body with joy, and find wonder in its many abilities.
Mostly, I think, after a lifetime of living under the tyranny of my pain, with no control over its timing or intensity, I want to feel some bit of control. I want to believe that while I didn’t get to choose this body, I do have agency in its moving through the world. We are not separate from our sinews, and it seems to me that embracing our embodiment is a path out of splintered duality towards an integrated appreciation of the miracle of creation.
Very practically, these desires may culminate in losing some weight, or gaining some muscle, or staying exactly as I am at this moment. What I won’t choose is any path that makes life feel smaller or more restricted or less magical. I won’t choose a path that makes me the servant of food or exercise or some rigid legalism. If I’ve learned anything, it is that our bodies change wildly over the course of a life, and that what is right for us in one moment can be entirely ill-fitting in the next. What I want is a deeper understanding of what my body needs from me.
I’m about a month into this next chapter of discovery and am already more amazed at this hand-knit wonder. I’m learning about the miracle of femininity and our astonishing capacity for growing muscles and strength. I’m experiencing once again the peace of morning walks, before the heat, when the cool drops are still on the flowers. I’m praying my way through strength training, asking God to help me understand and care for this thing that He created, in His magnificent image.
Because it was, indeed, made with great care, in the image of the Almighty. Because each day lived in this tangle of limbs and curly hair is an exquisitely curated gift from a benevolent universe. And because God, in His goodness, gave us the capacity to learn and understand how best to be embodied, and to re-learn over and over as age and living make their marks. May that same good God grant us His grace each day as we work to faithfully embrace our embodiment, and may we find the patience to stay in this work as we must surely stay in these bodies. And when it is most difficult, and we are wracked with pain or illness or the results of lived hardship, may we remember that these bodies were knit with the greatest of intention, and look with kindest eyes on God’s handiwork. Amen.
Ansley Kelly (’16) makes her home in Rochester, NY, where she delights in short, sweet summers spent sailing and long winters spent skiing at her favorite mountain. Between outdoor adventures, you can find her buying books more quickly than she can read them and indulging in mid-morning naps. She works for Wegmans Food Markets where she finds purpose and joy in feeding her community and the wider world.
And amen.