#39: Realignment For Body And Soul

Burnout can look like faithfulness when everyone depends on you, but God never asked you to disappear to prove you love Him. We’re continuing our Lent series with a topic we often avoid: our bodies. Not as a project, not as a problem, not as a measure of worth, but as sacred space. 
 
We name the lies out loud: that your worth is based on how you look, that your body only matters when it performs, and that rest is for lazy people. If you’ve ever felt guilty for needing rest or ashamed of what your body can’t do, you’re not alone. 
 
We also walk through Mark 5:25–34, a healing story, yes, but it’s also a picture of being seen without condemnation. If this conversation helps you pause and rethink your self-talk, your habits, or the way you’ve been treating your body, share it with a friend who needs the reminder. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell me what you want to hear next.

Transcript

Lent As A Season Of Realignment

Why Women Run On Empty

Your Body As The Spirit’s Temple

Three Lies About Bodies And Worth

Jesus Rested So You Can Too

Listening For God’s Whisper

The Woman Healed In Mark 5

Isolation Shame And Being Seen

Questions For Care And Self Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Channel and welcome to Life Out Loud. I am your host, Desiree Melfi Botozo. We are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting, unshakable, unwavering, unmessable with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life. Ciao, friends. Welcome back to the Life Out Loud Podcast. I'm your host, Desiree Melfi Boatsow. This podcast exists to help women draw closer to Jesus through really practical, easy to understand, applicable teaching. So if you know somebody in your life who this might be helpful for, absolutely pass it on. Always actually an honor. We'll call it an honor, a complete honor, really, to have this passed on to the people in your life that you love. So if you think this could be helpful for somebody, hit the share button, pass it along. I wholeheartedly appreciate it. This sea, this past few episodes, we've gotten into a Lent series. And so we're going to continue almost to the end. We know from all the topics we've covered that Lent is the season of realignment. And as we near the end, I want to talk about something I actually don't think I've ever talked about on my podcast before. And that is our bodies. Dun dun dun. It's not that ominous. It's actually really good and really wholesome and might even have you shedding a tear. Because if I can be honest, when I was writing these notes and diving in, it actually uh hits on one of my favorite chapters of scripture, and I shed a tear. So maybe I'm just weird. It's probably it, but whatever. Uh moving on. So our bodies are these unbelievably incredible vessels that we traverse this life in. So it's imperative that we start, we talk about them, right? We have to, we have to talk about them. We can't get through Lent without talking about them. In this series, we've talked about the fasting and the weeping in the morning. We've started that. Um, that kind of set the foundation for Lent. Uh, we talked about returning to Jesus, our King, uh, releasing the things we carry. We talked about the wilderness seasons, the dry and barren, the dry and bare, also sometimes barren, uh, hard seasons that are wilderness seasons. And then we've talked about surrendering and releasing control. So now I want to unpack caring for the thing that God created, which is our bodies. It's you and it's me. So, as women and moms, we are often, I don't know if this is you, uh, we're often so kind and uh giving to everyone else, but to ourselves, like not so much, right? We uh make sure everyone else has rested and eaten and feels supported and is encouraged. Uh, while we like in the background run on empty, kind of frazzled, probably most of the time. Uh, we push through exhaustion, we ignore our limits. And let's be honest, sometimes our self-talk is less than stellar. Uh, I can tell you that there have been times in my brain when I'm like, oh my gosh, I would never utter that to another human on this world. And yet I just said it to myself. So that's a thing. Uh, while sometimes this all happens while we convince ourselves that it's actually holy and faithful because somehow depletion and running ragged, uh, sacrificing ourselves for other people is somehow, somehow makes us extra holy. That's not true. Okay. Also, uh, God cares about you and your body and uh your rest. So we'll get to we'll get to more of that. Lent, so beautifully, so eloquently, really. It's really very eloquent, uh, reminds us differently. Paul shows us this new way of thinking in for uh, let's see, First Corinthians chapter six, um, verses 19 to 20. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price, therefore, honor God with your bodies. Our bodies are temples and dwelling places of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are something sacred. I don't know about you, but growing up and in my 20s specifically, more so, uh, I never quite grasped the magnitude of 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20, and that my body was the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Whoa. Like putting it in that context, like kind of makes me question life decisions sometimes, right? And I think I can say that confidently because that's probably most of us. Okay. This world, there's a couple lies that this world tells us. The first one uh that I wrote down, I think it's worth noting, that our worth is based on our looks. I think that's the first lie of this world. Like, how do you look, right? Don't age, don't look tired, and for goodness sakes, don't get ugly. Ah, what? Scary, right? Can you imagine? Like sometimes, okay, so by day, I uh I'm a faculty member at a university. And um, I've had this conversation actually with my students, right? Like they are on like these dating apps, and there's like the one where you gotta like do the swiping. And I'm like, oh my God, can you imagine how terrifying that would be to have somebody like swipe left or right based on your face? What? That is absolutely terrifying. And that would have terrified me in college, yet, like, could you imagine having to do it in your 40s? Like, that is terrifying to me. I don't, I don't know about you. That might be a rant, but whatever. That is not a good idea. Don't do that. Um, I'm pretty sure I don't know if swiping right or left is bad, first of all. Whatever way is bad, uh, it is there's no good that is gonna have to come from swiping on my gigantic forehead. Okay, seriously. So I just I don't think I don't like that. Um, and so that's a worldly lie that I think uh as women specifically, we have to um we have to see it as a lie. We have to look at that and say, no, I'm not gonna be judged based on my looks. I'm not gonna subscribe to that uh that thinking, right? So anyway, lie number one, another worldly lie. Oh, this one's rough. Our body is only useful if it performs. Okay. So any former athletes out there, hey, at some point you're not as fast as you used to be. That's rough. Uh, also, as women, we're called to carry children. We're called to like grow human beings in our bodies. Uh, we're then called to raise those children. Uh, also uh work, please. And then I want you to cook, and then I want you to clean too and be strong. Also, don't ever get tired. Oh, that's a lot. Also, stay in shape. There's that too. Don't get fat. Oh, Lord, literally, Lord, help me. When our bodies start to fail us, right, with this lie that we believe, our bodies start to fail us, we feel like failures. Anybody who's uh gotten out of shape, uh, gone through an infertility journey month after month. I can speak to, well, I can speak to both of those, let's be honest. Uh, but for sure, the second one, like I remember days looking in the mirror, telling myself, like, you have one job. Conceive and grow a human. What is wrong with you? That was literally my self-talk going through our infertility journey, right? Those are the worst days when God wasn't like in it with me. He was always in it with me, but you know what I mean. When I wasn't like reaching out to him, left to my own devices, that was my self-talk. As women, we um we tend to feel like if our bodies start to fail us, then somehow we are failures. Ladies, that's a lie. Okay. Last lie, next, well, not the last one. I'm sure there's more. The last one I'm gonna cover. Ignore your limits because rest is for the lazy. Somehow in our culture, I don't understand it, but this is a thing. Busy somehow means that you're important and successful. Tired somehow means you're ultra productive. And overwhelmed can somehow mean, I don't know, important and successful too. Like maybe not successful, but definitely like I'm important, I'm overwhelmed. I have so much to do. What we're not meant to live busy and tired and overwhelmed. First of all, busyness is a lie. Nobody is truly too busy for you. They're either uh you're you're either not a priority or you're not a priority if somebody's too busy for you. Okay. Uh tired, that's a really good barometer to be like, hey, rest, right? And overwhelmed. Well, that's about time management. What's on your plate? What can you take off? What can you delegate? What can you ask people for help with? The world tells us all these things are good, but yet when we look at scripture, Jesus rested, Jesus withdrew from the crowds and the chaos, Jesus slept, Jesus stopped. The King of King and the Lord of Lords did all of those things. Our limits are actually feedback mechanisms that most of the time we don't pay attention to, or at least we don't give them enough attention. Rest is not lazy, it is the most necessary thing for holy ambition. The the call that God put on our life, our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit to dwell in, and we were bought at this at a price on Calvary. We must find ways to honor God with our bodies. And if you got to this point and you're like, I don't entirely know how to do that, stop everything and listen to him. I promise you, if you lock yourself in a room and tell the Lord, I am not leaving until you show me how to rest, and then you get real quiet and you listen to the sound of his voice. It's not going to be audible. I've never heard God audibly. I'd probably pee my pants if I did, if I can be honest, okay. But if you listen to the gentle whisper, if you listen to the nudging in your gut, if you listen to the thought that pops in your head, something you didn't see before, that oh my gosh, might make your path a little bit easier. That's him, most of the time, I assume, but that's him. That's what I trust. He will always, always talk to you, but we have to be willing to sit and listen. If you don't believe that he's gonna show you ways to honor your body, I want you to consider a woman that we see in Mark V. One of my favorite chapters of scripture. Take the time and go read it. It might not hit your soul like it hits mine, but it is stunning. So specifically, there's a lot of good in Mark V, uh, one through what, 43. I'm gonna focus in on 25 to 34 for the sake of this podcast. Mark 5, 25, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she got worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. If you're watching on YouTube, uh, there's some pictures behind me. This one right here over here. This is the lady on the ground, literally touching his clothes. One of my favorite artists, she's amazing, and she painted that. Uh, it's delightful. It's truly amazing. And I can't look at it without crying. So I'm gonna keep moving on. Uh, I'm gonna actually read verse 27 again. So when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought if I could just touch his clothes, I will be healed immediately, like that. Her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once, Jesus realized the power had gone out from him and he turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes? When you see, you see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you can ask, Who touched me? But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. This woman most likely suffered from what we know as hemorrhaging, fibroids, endometriosis-like condition, or another hormonal or reproductive disorder. Okay. It would have left her weak emotionally and physically. It would have left her anemic and completely and utterly exhausted and depleted. In Jewish law, she would have been deemed unclean. I want to read Leviticus 15, 25 to 27. Little graphic, but it's cool because we can do hard things around here. Uh, when a woman has discharge of blood for many days at a time, other than her monthly period, or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as the in the days of her period. Verse 26: any bed she lies on, her discharge continu any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her body during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean as during her period. Anyone who touches them will be unclean. They must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. This poor woman. Twelve years. 12 years of not being able to enter the temple, not touching others, anything in anyone she touched made her unclean, which have would have made her like ostracized from community and people. She would have been socially separated. I don't know if any of you lived through 2020 being socially separated. Imagine 12 years of social separation from people, and it was because of her body. Can you imagine what was going on in her mind because of that? She lived with isolation, she lived with shame, she lived with loneliness, feeling like she didn't quite belong in society then she heard about Jesus. She knew if she could just uh touch him, despite the crowds, despite the people, she knew if she could just not even him, if she could just touch the hem of his garment, he would heal her. She did. She fought through and she did. She fought through the crowds and immediately not when she got herself together, not in another couple months, not it was immediate healing because that's the God we serve. Here's where it gets good instead of being angry, because if you read the story, Jesus was actually on his way somewhere, okay? Jesus was on his way to go do something else. And I'm not gonna spoil it, you can go read it. It's amazing. I'm sure at some point I'll break it down on this podcast. Instead of getting angry with her, Jesus stopped. And not only did he stop, but he looked for her. He spoke to her. And he this is funny to me because he he says, Who touched my clothes? Jesus knew, he knew exactly who touched his clothes. But I think for the disciples and the crowd, and maybe even for her, he needed her to see her, him looking for her. He looked at her, he looked for her, he looked at her, and then he speaks to her. Verse 43, I want to re-highlight it. When the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. Though she was fearful, she fell at his feet and told him the truth. What if we did that in our anger, in our fear, in our anxiety, in our I don't know, disappointments and the stuff that we got? What if, despite all that, we fell at his feet and we told him everything? How many of us could be freed and healed from that? He knows, anyways. Verse 34, notice what he calls her. He said to her, daughter, your faith healed you, go in peace and be freed from suffering. He didn't call her a problem, he didn't call her a burden, he didn't say, Oh, I'm actually I'm busy, I got a lot going on, I don't know. I got the I'm on a time cross. Like he didn't say any of that. He stopped and he looked at her and he said, Daughter, he cares about our bodies, he cares about our hearts and our minds. Our bodies matter to God because these are the vessels that he's doing his work on earth through. We are his hands and feet. He's doing work through us. If our bodies aren't cared for, we can't fulfill his plan. We can't fulfill the purpose and the call that he has on our life. So there's a couple questions and a couple things I want you to start calling to mind as you think about your body. And the first question is where am I neglecting my body? Where am I making sure everyone else is taken care of? But I'm kind of a little bit neglecting me. Then I want you to start thinking about your self-talk instead of oh my gosh, I'm failing. What if we were like, you know what? Now I'm working on it. Not quite failing, not quite got it mastered yet. I'm working on it. That is an okay place to be. What about instead of I'm exhausted? We said, God is with me.

unknown 19:57

God is with me.

Closing Encouragement And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Jesus. Jesus is with me. Holy Spirit walks with me. What if we said those things? Bruns, our words matter. At some point I'll talk about it, but they do, they matter. Our words are really, really important. And the things we say, even like the one-off things that we just kind of like say as a joke, those things matter. They hold weight. The earth was created on words. Our words are important. So the words and the things that we say to ourselves, to our spouses, over our children, they matter. They matter more than some of us realize. Pay attention to the words that we're speaking. So where are you neglecting yourself? And what are the things that you're saying? I hope this was helpful. I hope it was fruitful. I hope it caused you to pause. I hope it caused you to look at some of the ways that um honor your body. And I hope that it was good for your soul. Friends, come back next time. We're gonna throw more encouragement and more scripture around like confetti. Be careful if you get too close. You're definitely going to get some on you. In the meantime, read Mark V. Such a good chapter. Uh, and we will see you next time. Cheers. Thank you for joining me, Desiree Melfi Bozzo, for this episode of Life Out Loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment, tell me what topics you want to talk about, and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link, share it on social media, or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, be back over to my webpage, lifeoutloud.me, and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time, sweet listeners.