Valentines is on Tuesday this year, a non-stat holiday dedicated to expressing a measure of love for someone or multiple someones. Many think of this day as a day of romantic love, but romance is only one part of the picture, particularly where relationships are involved. Romantic love can come and go based on how we feel, but there is another type of love that needs to undergird it to have any relationship last. That type of love is known as Agape love. Another way to put it, is the word charity. It is the love that considers the needs of the other person and seeks to meet those before meeting their own needs. Mothers are often celebrated for this type of love on Mother’s Day each year, where for once, families are encouraged to feed her breakfast in bed and do the housework for her, maybe take her out to dinner, etc. We celebrate this type love on Father’s Day, giving preference to let Dad dominate the BBQ that day, maybe get him a new fishing tackle box, etc.
But on Valentine’s Day, it is good to remind ourselves of Agape love as well, because without it, no relationship will last. In Scripture, God encourages the display of Agape love between a husband and wife as follows:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
Ephesians 5:25-29
This is only part of Paul’s exhortation to married couples, but it is the part I want to focus on tonight. In these verses, we see Paul giving examples of just how this love is intended to play out. He talks about Christ washing the body of the Church with the water of the Word. In the same way in the physical realm, we wash our bodies with water from the tap or a spring or a pool, lake or river. We may use soap to help wash debris, dirt, and other contaminants away from our skin.
Paul talks about no spot or wrinkle, and in the physical realm, we wash our clothes to get out stains, dirt spots, and other grime, then we will hang dry or throw them in the dryer. Sometimes we might pull out an iron to get the wrinkles out so that our clothes are not only clean, but well-pressed.
Paul then reminds us that no one ever hated their own body! Perhaps in the days without TV, movies, and photoshop, there was less body envy back then, but now we DO get people who hate the body they are in so badly, that they take drugs and go under the surgical knife to change it to their liking. Or should we say, hopefully to their liking, as some have gone under the knife so many times they not only don’t recognize themselves anymore, they are permanently disfigured! Then there are those who, through social conditioning, poor consistent diet choices from before birth, and lack of affirmation that they are who God made them to be, also taking drugs and going under the knife, only to regret it later. Unfortunately, governments are making laws to trap this last group so that even if they wanted to, they could never leave the cult they knowingly or unknowingly signed up for.
So Paul is naturally assuming that the average person looks after the body God gave them, and for most of the world’s population, we do to this day, or we should. How does Paul illustrate this point in the passage above? He says the person doesn’t hate their body, but nourishes and cherishes (or cares for) it.
How do we nourish and care for our bodies? We make wise food choices. We abstain from food, drink, and other ingestibles that could harm it. We ensure it gets proper rest periods, proper sleep periods, that it is exercised adequately, and that it is clothed appropriately for the conditions and circumstances in which we find ourselves. Because our bodies respond to how we think, feel, and how we interact in the physical and spiritual realms, we take care to ensure Godly forms of quiet times, destressers, and we endeavour to learn where we thrive and where we don’t.
It is in the interest of cherishing and nourishing our bodies, that I present the latest update to my Nutritional/Medicinal WholeFoods Database. It now features just over 8,500 entries for over 400 foods, herbs and spices that are accessible to North Americans and many Western Europeans. Some have very few entries, some have quite a few entries. This is a living document, with new information being added or updated fairly frequently. We don’t just want to fill our bellies for the day, we want to do it strategically, knowing that the nutrition contained inside is what our bodies need for that moment in time.
In my household, we adjust what we buy and how much of it we buy, based on what various members of the household need at the time, and based on the season. We balance this with our pocketbook, so that we are always getting the best nutritional bang for our buck. The most recent example of this was discovering that the bread buns we usually bought were now costing more than homemade eggless pancakes and flatbread! When I discovered that bit of math, I began baking roughly twice a week. Switching my adult son over to bean bread from wheat got easier when he discovered sour cream and cheese go well with it, letting it dry out to chip dryness, then crushing, adding his toppings and sitting down to lunch. First, this eases up on his gut and reduces the amount of glyphosate he’s taking in from the wheat, and second, it gets dairy into him, both in some degree of fermentation. Due to having his pancreas removed at the age of 5, replenishing his gut flora is mandatory, so yogurt will appear on the grocery list as well and he’s begun drinking kombucha now too. Just like my database, our grocery list is a living notepad, changing as bodily needs change.
My database can help you with that task in your household as well. The cost is still just $79.95, with $10 upgrades after you’ve purchased the main database. Upgrades are released anywhere from 1 to three months apart, depending on how quickly info is or isn’t added and updated.
Show your body some Agape love this week, by making it easier to tailor your grocery list to your household’s nutritional needs. If you’d like assistance in doing this, request your free initial consultation, fill out the linked intake form, and we’ll develop a plan to go over your household’s eating habits, general health status, your available monthly grocery budget, and based on store prices in your area, we’ll come up with a grocery list that gets you the most nutritional bang for your buck too! We can set up follow-up visits once a month or once every couple months to see how things are going and if the list needs tweaking because of a health change or a price change etc.
So tell your body “Happy Valentine’s Day”, and get it my database as a gift this year.
