Emilie with her dance partner, Val

By Emilie Tobias

Rejoice! Give thanks! Tell all about it!

My body is a beautiful and unique masterpiece created and designed by God! With this body I can think, imagine, see, hear, taste, smell and touch. With my God-made mind, I can remember both the good and the bad in my life in divinely directed lessons leading to both gratitude and gentle correction.

With this body, I can walk, dance, swim and hold my soft furry kitties or hug my husband of 25 years. I can see the world and flowers and cats and other people. I can smell a rose, delighting in this ability, both literally and metaphorically. God’s gift of abstract thinking and memory allow me to smell the roses in the winter!

My body—both inside and out—is exceptional. My curves tell the story of abundant provision and their beautiful design embody the feminine classic standard through centuries. My digestion, respiration, blood cells and all other engineering marvels of my body declare the design of You, my Creator.

God’s gift of words and imagination can tell His story and ours with empathy, pathos and all the details that my God-created body has perceived. Drawing upon almost every sense, I can learn and develop exquisite, body-expressed waltz or cha-cha as a dancer with my professional dance partner.

With this body, which has experienced tragic suffering and incomparable joy, I can tell stories through movement and music and humor and drama and film. With God-infused artistic vision I can touch others’ hearts to know they are not alone. I can inspire others to feel the full range of emotions God has given us and has felt Himself!

Thank you, God, for all the things my body can do ranging from the ordinary to the sublime. In your kingdom even the most “ordinary” functions of my body are your brilliant design. Thank you Wonderful Creator and Designer of my masterpiece of a body.

David once said:

The heavens declare the glory of God,

And the sky above proclaims his handiwork,

Day to day pours out speech,

And night to night reveals knowledge.

Psalm 19:1-2

The same is true of my body! It declares the glory of God! It proclaims his handiwork!

Praise God the Creator!!

Emilie Tobias with one of her students.

Emilie, one of our Thin Within participants, lives in the Deep South with a plethora of cats and her wonderful loving husband, Joe. She has been a professional dancer, dance instructor, and dance studio owner for over 20 years and loves to share her gifts with others as an expression of her love for life, people, and the Lord.

How about you?

Emilie wrote this piece as an affirmation to defy the negative self-talk that might sometimes invade her thinking.Why not start 2016 doing the same? Will you write an affirmation of your God-given body that you can speak and pray over your body each day, thanking God for His marvelous handiwork? If you do, please send it to us at thinwithin.org [at] gmail.com. We would love to hear from you and possibly share it on our blog! ~ Thanks, Heidi Bylsma