"My Body?"

One of my favorite authors is Anne Ortlund. My faith gets such a lift from her writings. I love the introduction to her book "Disciplines of a Beautiful Woman." Here are some excerpts from her introduction:

Background: She is writing from the hospital where she just had a hysterectomy.


-"Romans 12:1-2 is wonderful: " I present my body a living sacrifice." How silly to give God only my heart or my allegiance or whatever, and not my body! Certainly it is his to anesthetize, to roll into operating rooms, to poke with needles or fill with pills-to do all or none of these things, as he jolly-well pleases. He is my Lord. I am absolutely relaxed to let him do with my body what he wants."

-"One of the disciplines of a godly woman must be the discipline of the mind. We are not free to let our emotions flip and flop all over the place. We are not free to fret and worry if we feel like it, to indulge ourselves in pouting and stewing. That doesn't mean that "blues" aren't permissible; they are. many of the Psalms are David's laying out his feelings openly before the Lord-his "down" feelings as well as his "up" feelings- but putting them bothe into God's hands in completely surrendered faith. Lord, I feel great today; I praise you or Lord, I feel lousy today, but I praise you, anyway. Bad feelings aren't necessarily the result of sin; if I feel down, maybe I just ate something that didn't agree with me.
But anxiety- that is something else. Worry is disobedience. The disciplined mind makes no room for doubting God's plan for me.

-"We don't truly know peace in our hearts until pain is as welcome to us as lack of pain"

-"and pain is God's beautiful gift, anyway, to make us lean harder on him, when He knows we need it."

-Isaiah 26:3 KVJ-"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: beacuase he trusteth in thee."

-PS 16:9 "Therefor my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth" and two days after surgery "my flesh also shall rest in hope."