READ: GENESIS 1:26-27; 3:1-11; 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19-20; GALATIANS 2:20

I’m fat. My skin is broken out. My nose is too big. I’m ugly.

Thoughts like these have haunted me most of my life, particularly during my teenage years. I often wondered what was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I look different? Sometimes, just looking in a mirror made me want to cry.

My weight bothered me most, so I tried anything to reduce it. I refused my body nourishment, exercised too much, adopted specific and irrational eating rituals, and spiraled into binge eating. All of this was an attempt to quiet the sadness inside. I thought if I could control my weight tightly enough, I would be happy.

What I couldn’t see back then was that I was believing a lie. I hated my body for how it looked. I thought it was worthless. I didn’t think God cared or had anything to say about it. It took me many years and much wise Christian counsel to realize that nothing could be further from the truth.

God created all of us in His image, the crown jewels of His originally good creation. It was only after humanity’s fall into sin that we began misusing our bodies and considering them shameful. But even in our broken state, God came to save us. Fully God and fully human, Jesus was born into the world. He has a body like we have, and that’s why He could die on our behalf and make us right with God again, no matter what our bodies look like (Psalm 34:5; Romans 3:22-26).

And there’s more good news. Before Jesus came, God provided His people with a temple, a place for His presence to dwell so they could worship Him. But now, God doesn’t make His home in a physical building anymore. He lives in us. That’s right, He chose to make the body that I hated and mistreated for so long into His new temple. Scripture tells us that we are not our own, we were bought at a very high price. And that price was the blood of Jesus. Therefore, we are called to glorify Him with our bodies.

So, if you are ever tempted to view your body as I did, please remember that you are worth much more than you think. The staggering reality is that we, bodies included, are immeasurably valuable because God created us, loves us, died for us, and lives in us. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing. • Alissa Griffin

• Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them.” How does the fact that we bear the image of God affect how we view our bodies?

• After Jesus died on the cross, He rose from the grave, and His disciples saw His resurrected body. If we’ve put our trust in Jesus, we can look forward to the day He will raise us from the dead—then we’ll have resurrected bodies too, and we’ll live with Him forever in restored creation! On that glorious day, we won’t struggle with sin and brokenness anymore. How might knowing that our bodies will be resurrected change the way we view ourselves? What does this say about how valuable our bodies are to God?

• What does it mean to honor or glorify God with our bodies? (Hint: read Romans 6:13 and Ephesians 5:29)

• Today’s devotion mentions disordered eating. If you are struggling with disordered eating or think you might have an eating disorder—such as anorexia nervosa (extreme restriction of food intake), bulimia nervosa (eating large amounts of food followed by purging), or binge eating disorder (repeated episodes of consuming large amounts of food in short periods of time)—who is a trusted adult you could talk to about getting help? Treatment for eating disorders can be long and complex, usually requiring therapy and nutritional counseling, but Jesus will walk with you every step of the way, and He’ll provide fellow Christians to...

READ: JOHN 16:33; ACTS 16:16-25; ROMANS 8:28-39; HEBREWS 12:1-3

So cold. Such nasty weather. The wind is terrible. The voice in my head was full of complaints. I was ready to get inside and tell everyone just how miserable I had felt on my morning walk. I can’t do this. I frowned. How was I even going to make it inside? It was too cold.

Suddenly, a thought popped into my head: I needed to change my thinking if I wanted things to get easier. A hymn came to mind, and I started singing it in my head as I continued forward. In what felt like just moments, I had covered all the ground I needed to cover, and I was back in the warmth.

In Acts 16, life couldn’t have been fun for Paul and Silas when they were in prison. They hadn’t done anything wrong, yet they were publicly “stripped and beaten with rods” (verse 22), then locked up with criminals in the worst part of the jail. What did the two men do as they sat in the dank inner cell, bloody and bruised, with their feet held fast in stocks so they couldn’t even move their legs to ease the pain? They sang. What did they sing? Songs to God.

Sometimes we need to change our focus in order to get through difficult times. Instead of focusing on the trouble in front of us and the pain we’re dealing with, we need to focus on how great our God is and all that He has done for us. Instead of focusing on the cold wind against our faces, we can thank God for the sunshine He created to go along with that wind.

There are going to be struggles in our lives. There is nothing we can do to stop them from coming. When they come, though, will we store up complaints to share with others—or will we turn our focus onto Jesus and praise God? • Emily Acker

• Have you ever found yourself praising God in the midst of a hard time? What was that like?

• God sees all that we go through, and He has so much compassion on us. Jesus has promised to be with us in all our troubles, and He can truly empathize with us because He experienced our suffering when He lived among us and was put to death on the cross. Whenever we’re struggling, He weeps with us— and He also reminds us that He loves us, that He rose from the dead, and that He promises to raise His people too. We can trust that God is in control, and He will work things out for our good. How can these truths help us praise God in the hard times?

Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! Psalm 147:1 (NIV)

READ: PSALM 34:17-22

I wasn’t hiding
I’ve always been here
All of this time
There is no need to fear

I wouldn’t leave you
This is not the end
Broken as it is
Your heart, I will mend

I am always good
I have good plans for you
My gentle hand will guide
In all that you do

I am your Father
You can come to me
Always, in any moment
I will give you peace • Bethany Acker

• Can you think of a time you felt like God wasn’t there for you? Throughout our lives, we all go through times like these, and it’s easy to wonder if God has left us. Thankfully, God has given us so many promises in His Word, assuring His people that He will never leave us. Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, He is always with us. (If you want to dig deeper, read Psalms 139:10; 147:3; Isaiah 41:10; Matthew 7:7-11; 11:28-30; 28:20; John 14:27; 1 Corinthians 2:9; Hebrews 13:5)

• God always wants us to turn to Him. When we are brokenhearted, He wants to give us the comfort we so desperately need. He is a loving Father who is always there for us. Consider taking a moment to talk to God about times He’s felt far away, asking Him to help you see how He was with you then, and how He is with you now.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 (NIV)