Nothing quite reawakens and rekindles gratitude for good health like several sick days in bed. Finally having turned the corner on a very unpleasant, several days long illness, I have been reminded of the blessing of our bodies. On that subject, I’d like to write a few words here at Untoalltheworld.blog.
Each body differs in dimensions and abilities, but each is a sacred gift from the Father of our souls. Some bodies are severely limited by debilitating handicaps while others are splendidly capable of performing to the highest level of human ability. Every child of God who kept his or her first estate and is set forth to come to earth prior to the Savior’s return will be rightly fitted with the body of Father’s choice in mortality. Some of these fittings are more challenging than others, but we know that each physical abode is, in itself, a blessing for an awaiting spirit.
In my lifetime, I have seen some ghastly disfigurations of the human body due to deformity or injury. Once when working in Labor and Delivery, I saw a baby born who was grossly disfigured from the face down. I let out an audible gasp when I saw her. I have been forever grateful I was alone when I first laid eyes on her. The sight was shocking. As I walked away from the ICU, I thought of her parents and ached for what must have been horrible heart sorrow at first seeing their baby, knowing how instantly their first born child dreams would have been dashed.
When I was once deployed to the Middle East in the service of this country that I love, I cared for a short time for a member of the Iraqi Special Forces. In bravery beyond his still nearly youthful years, he had trained and been appointed to serve, alongside his American brothers, in his country’s Special Forces. He fought valiantly and faithfully on the side of freedom until he was injured by the Taliban. He was shot nine times and remarkably, he lived. One of the nine bullets that ripped through his flesh struck his spinal cord; tragically, he became paralyzed from the waist down. I can still see his tear-stained face as he begged me, in that tent hospital, to help him stand “just one more time.” In the darkness of night, I stood near his cot and tried to help him fight the new enemy of depression. I remember caressing his hand and whispering, “A bitter heart is worse than broken legs.” Easy for me to say. I pray God he is okay.
And on a different tour, there was a youthful, Afghani soldier (he, too, was on the side of freedom) whose life was spared, but his legs were not. To save his life, his legs had been taken. Both of them. He was despondent, and so was I as I glanced at the blanket which covered the shape of his shortened body devoid of lower extremities. I could say nothing. I only could weep with him.
Furthermore, there are so many – children and adults – whose bodies are daily ravished by conditions that bring incessant self-harm, little movement, constant pain, or very restricted ability.
And so – according to purpose and plan of One much more knowledgeable than ourselves – it goes.
Through heredity, illness, or accident, these bodies can, themselves, be such challenges, but they are, nonetheless, bodies of blessings.
I’m pretty persuaded that a great many of those here who endure severe challenges with their physical bodies are some of God’s most stalwart souls. I give it as my opinion that perhaps many of those thus afflicted had pre-earth like valor and valiance that per chance necessitated, as a form of protection from the enemy of their souls there and here, some form of bodily protection offered in limited capacity. I do not preach this as doctrine, only as a possible explanation for some, for I have known exceptionally heroic and incredibly valiantly faithful souls in the cause of Christ whose spirits have been housed in poorly functioning bodies.
Larry Tucker, in speaking to BYU students about their physical bodies, referenced the blind man Jesus healed as recorded in John 9. He then said:
“We all know people like this man –
perhaps not blind but disabled or diseased
in some way. No doubt such circumstances
can be difficult. Frequently individuals
with such challenges
are spiritually mature and holy. They have endured much.
Often their rough edges
have been worn away and their spirits
have been polished by the grind of hardship.
Sometimes the elect are required
to endure the most, such as
Joseph Smith, Job, and Jesus Christ.
Our challenge is to endure, no matter what
our circumstances are…”
(Larry Tucker, “The Human Body: A Gift and a Responsibility,” BYU Speech: May 28, 2013)
Our bodies – they are blessings.
How can I write that, knowing how non-functioning or poorly functioning some bodies are, despite honest efforts to the contrary? The answer may be found in these beautiful words of Norwegian born, convert to the church, John Widtsoe, who himself was born with a hand attached to the side of his head (corrected by surgery):
“Through the body the spirit speaks,
and through the body
the experiences of earth are made
the possession of the spirit.
It is well that we give due care and consideration to the
welfare of the body, which is the one great characteristic
of this epoch in our eternal journey.”
(John A. Widtsoe, in Conference Report, April 1926, 108)
“…through the body the experiences of earth are made the possession of the spirit…” That is a remarkable, fundamental to our eternal growth statement. A price (involving the body) must be paid to make “experiences of earth” “possessed of the spirit.” The body – in whatever form it comes or becomes – is the conduit for earthly experiences to become spiritual treasures that have power to transform our whole souls. If earth is a probation time (which it is), if earth is a time to repent and be reconciled to God (which it is), and if “all…things shall give [us] experience and…be for [our] good” (which is the design), then our bodies – which are cardinal to the spirit’s learning and possessing – are blessings. (See Doctrine and Covenants 121:7)
Unto all the world: Congenitally imperfect, earthly injured, or otherwise, let us be thankful for the blessing of our bodies.