Oh Lord, Your compassionate mercy is so tender.
Your encouragement consoles and strengthens.
Your grace upon grace is unending.
As I groan with the losses of chronic illness and pain,
as I grieve the loss of a body that changed many years ago.
“For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Cor. 5:2 ESV)…
I grieve with Your soul-strengthened gift.
In this body, in chronic pain, within ongoing collections of chronic illnesses and labels.
“In this body” is my “reality-prefix.”
It comes before each sentence and truth of Your living and active Word.
In this body, this is true:
“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3 ESV).
In this hurting body?
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Pet. 1:3 ESV).
“Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens” (Ps. 119:89 ESV).
My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine;
for thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou;
If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.1
In this body, I am beloved in Christ
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared;
but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:1-2 ESV).
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
my beauty are, my glorious dress;
'midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head.2
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (Jn. 3:16-17 ESV).
“I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies” (Sgs. 6:3 ESV).
I love thee because thou hast first loved me,
and purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree.
I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow;
if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
In this body, I can obey Your command to love You and others
“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (Jude 1:20-21 ESV).
“Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16 ESV)
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13 ESV).
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8 ESV).
I'll love thee in life, I will love thee in death;
and praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath;
and say, when the death-dew lies cold on my brow:
if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
How? In this broken body, I can put on Your righteous clothes of love, Lord Jesus
“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:12-14 ESV).
“The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Rom. 13:12 ESV).
“And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil. 3:9 ESV).
Jesus, be endless praise to thee,
whose boundless mercy hath for me -
for me a full atonement made,
an everlasting ransom paid.
In this body for now, looking with hope to a resurrection body with You, Lord!
How? In this body, setting my mind on my risen and reigning Lord and Savior Christ Jesus!
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:1-4 ESV)!!!!!
“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Cor. 15:54 ESV)!!!!!
When from the dust of death I rise
to claim my mansion in the skies,
ev'n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died,
for me!
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18 ESV).
In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I'll ever adore thee in heaven so bright;
I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow:
if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.
Amen!
This music therapy-inspired podcast carries these Scriptures and hymns to our hearts and minds, in this body we’re both living in.
Beloved in Christ, I pray that He brings a calming of your autonomic nervous system, lessening your symptoms as you listen and breathe in time to the music. That He will soothe your soul with His Word as He reminds you of His love and purpose for you…now and forever. That your song of adoration to Jesus Christ will be a time of beautiful worship, on the sickbed, in the wheelchair, in the chemo chair, in this body wracked with pain.
May singing Christ’s hope be His joy within me and you this month.
“My Jesus, I Love Thee,” Featherston & Duffell, 1862
“Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,” Ludwig & von Zinzendorf, 1739
