Health and its relationship to spirituality has been an underlying focus of my time here in seminary. This class has given me language to express what the Lord has been teaching me during my time in Chicago. I enrolled in the class to gain a fuller understanding of Shalom. The idea of Shalom carries a sense of wholeness to it.
This is something I wish to explore more deeply. My faith has long been one of segregation. My mind, body, soul, and spirit were all viewed as separate things. My faith was tied to my mind. If I thought correctly, I would act correctly; and my spirit would be at peace. Care for my body was relegated to right actions. These actions focused on the negative, what I didn’t do (smoke, cuss, or chew as the old adage goes). During high school, I didn’t drink alcohol. This wasn’t because I was young and it could harm me, but because it wasn’t what “good Christians did.” Again, my actions were driven by right and wrong. My care for myself was based on avoiding sin.
Since I have come to North Park, words like, holistic, self-care, and Shalom have begun to become a part of my vocabulary, and are finding their way into my practices. Yet, I still struggle with right and wrong. I still wonder if I am doing the things that please God. I too often fall back on a false theology that states God is only pleased with me in relationship to the number of right things I do. I fall back on the false perception that right thinking leads to right action, and wrong/sinful thinking leads to wrong/sinful actions.
God is good, and God heals, however, I often feel like I am still waiting for my healing experience. I have some issues that pride and fear, as well as prudence keep me from describing in detail here on-line. What I have come to understand is that I do believe that I am loved by God. My theology states that I was created by God, but I do not think of myself as created by God.
My imagination does not see the hand of God reaching down to craft my form from mud. It does not sense the breath of God filling my lungs. I do not recognize myself to be one who reflects the image of God. Instead, I see myself as less than.
But this is okay. Because it simply is. What is cannot be changed. What can change is what will be. I currently live in community where my worth is held for me. Others know what I know (that I am made in the imago Dei) but more importantly, they see that I am made in the image of God. They see my worth, and they speak truth into my life. They give light to my soul. They hold for me what I cannot hold for myself.
Someday it will be that I see my own worth. On that day I will hold my own story, and the light in my soul will come from my imagination now freed to view myself as a worthy child of God.
--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau
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