memory

I am a firm believer that the body remembers. The body is a living thing with a heart, a soul, and a mind. It experiences each day with us, and it encompasses every action we take. It motivates actions, it sustains actions, and it stops actions. I believe the body remembers each and every one of those actions. Some may go to the “unnecessary” department, some may go to the “warm and fuzzy department,” and so on.

Hang with me, I know this sounds like I am re-writing Inside Out!

Most importantly, there is a “protect” department. When we approach seasons where something hard happened, it triggers the “protect” department of the body, and the body will respond accordingly.

It is funny how things seem to pop up in your life- a reminder that Satan truly is prowling to steal, kill, and destroy. There was a moment the other day where a reminder of past trauma popped up, seemingly out of the blue and annoyingly in my face. Immediately, my chest tightened, my heart rate quickened, and my mind shouted. My body was reminding me it was time to protect myself. My body was remembering.

“But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him . . . But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells . . . you yourself experience life on God’s terms . . . When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”

- Romans 8:9-11 MSG -

My body is not simply my body- it is a temple of the Lord. The Holy Spirit literally “dwells” within me. His power, his protection, and his purification is literally inside my body, soul, and mind. His breath is my breath. His power is my power. His protection is my protection. Christ fills my body head to toe. This body which remembers the hard moments, the happy moments, the dull moments in between, is flooded with my living God. My God remembers, too, and my God protects. My body doesn’t have to fall back into the fear of what will or could happen because that is no longer its job, that is the job of the all powerful God living within me.

God does more than protect, he makes new. Many of us know the “new creation” language from 2 Corinthians, but when our body begins to enter a season where trauma once occurred, we forget. A year ago was a year ago. Every. Single. Day. Christ is making me new. He has used everything before, then, and now to re-mold me.

Our purpose in life, as I often need reminding, is to share that powerful God with the world. A year ago, my scope to reach was expanded as my story became even richer with the story of Christ’s steadfastness in my life. I remember that moment when my chin lifted, and I stood. When my body begins to remember the hurt, it will remember the purpose: glorify the God who died so that I can rejoice in the death of that hurting body and the life of this new body filled with the breathe of my Savior.