On Spiritual vs. Physical

I sat down to write this morning and could feel myself trying to put it off. Doing anything and everything else on my to-do list besides “write in blog.” I know that digging into this stuff is important and healthy, but sometimes it just feels heavy.

Today’s quote, from September 2, 2012:

“Don’t focus so much on my life now on earth. My spiritual life and health are way more important than my physical one.”

In a devotional I wrote on Luke 17, specifically referencing verse 33 — “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and however loses their life will preserve it.”

The argument can and should be made that what I journaled was a leap from what the verse probably means. But, I wasn’t reading my Bible in a vacuum. This idea of focusing solely on our spiritual selves and the afterlife is a common theme in many Christian circles and I bought into that for most of my life.

In September of 2012, I would have been only a few weeks into my sophomore year of college and was finally getting my physical health under control. I had just gone gluten-free a few months prior and was already seeing changes, but I was certainly nowhere near completely healthy yet. So it’s fascinating to me that I wrote this. Was it a way to make me feel better about my physical body not working the way I needed it to? Was it just easier to focus on the “restoration” later on because I was so exhausted from being sick for years?

I think that’s why I and many other people don’t want to focus on right now. Right now can be painful, right now can be uncomfortable, but heaven promises restoration of all things — new bodies, new relationships, only goodness all the time. The hope Christians carry comes from that belief that all things will be restored and renewed in God’s timing, and we’re often told that that won’t happen while we’re here on earth.

When I started attending Calvin University in 2011, I was introduced to a very different way of thinking — Christians were meant to be God’s “agents of renewal.” God’s Kingdom could come here on earth; restoration was possible now. And so we fight for good. We fight against systems of oppression and ideas that hurt people. We advocate for the marginalized and we uplift voices that help to tell the story better than we can alone. We aim for wholeness, shalom.

I’m really drawn to this way of thinking still (minus the total depravity part, for those of you who are familiar with Calvin). I like the idea of a God who wants all of these things for his creation, a Jesus whose mission is justice and restoration and love for all people.

What a contrast to the Evangelical Christianity of my childhood. When I was told to share the gospel, it was always about winning people over to our side and saving them from hell — “If you truly loved them, you wouldn’t let them suffer for eternity.” I never ever felt like I was inviting them into something beautiful and restorative. So I just never shared the gospel.

Summer 2019, I was casually dating this guy I met playing volleyball. We were out for drinks one night and he asked me if I was religious. I’m sure my response was cagey — at this point, I was really involved in my church, but wasn’t 100% in it mentally or emotionally, which of course I felt guilty about. I knew I had many doubts, and I had had them for years, but church was just comfortable on some level. It’s what I knew.

I asked him the same question and he responded that he had grown up religious, but that a few years ago, he had decided it didn’t work for him anymore. He had walked away from it all. And you know how that made me feel? Jealous.

How did he get out? Why did it sound so easy for him? Also, why am I jealous of that? Why am I participating in something that I so clearly want to escape?

I think I had my first panic attack in August of that summer. It was right before going to my small group at church. I had been dreading it all day and wasn’t sure exactly why, though that had kind of become a theme. I didn’t ever really look forward to it. I took a nap when I got home from work, but couldn’t actually sleep because my heart was racing. Once I finally convinced myself to get out of bed, already late for group, I got dressed and went downstairs. And then I just sat.

I felt like I couldn’t move. My chest was tight and I couldn’t stop crying. I felt like a crazy person, paralyzed with my emotions completely out of control. My body was loudly and forcefully saying what it had been trying to say for years at this point: “Enough.”

I listened to my body that evening, because I had to; I do not think I could have willed myself out of that house. But how long had I been so focused on my “spiritual life and health” to the detriment of my physical health? How much energy had I spent trying to convince myself that the sensations in my body were the Holy Spirit convicting me and not a trauma response? How many other Christians are doing the same thing because they think that’s what God requires of them?

I now believe that my spiritual and physical existence are very much intertwined. I recognize that many of my physical health issues have probably been related to spiritual trauma I endured and then forced upon myself. My spiritual health is not more important than my physical health, they are equal, and “spiritual” has a very different meaning for me now than it did in 2012.

Today, I continue on this journey of getting to know myself better, of listening to my body before she makes me, and of loving myself into a healthier place. Wishing the same for every other human.