If I lost my woman parts.

Yes, a very "edgy" and possibly inappropriate topic, but it is the one I am currently mulling on.

I recently heard of a woman only 10 years older than myself who is losing all her woman parts... due to cancer. I hear about a lot of tragic disease but this one stopped me dead in my... checking my email.

As the implications of this tragedy began to seep themselves into my mind and heart (and in turn into my tear ducts), I had to ask the question, "What if this were me?" How would it affect me as a woman. And maybe someday as a wife. And as a mom.

Some may call me morbid or maybe dramatic because this isn't me, so why think about this. But, I do have good reason for letting this roll around in my noggin for a bit.

It connects with my recent and not-so-recent thoughts about womanhood and beauty and all that other female-y stuff. Losing your female parts, inside and out, would cause me to struggle with feelings about being woman. If I were to lose all those things, like this wonderful woman who I don't even know, I would think it would seriously affect me, to say the least. These already questions affect me even while I am fully intact.

At the risk of putting myself out there, the whole beauty/womanhood question is only something I have just begun teaching (and in turn blogging) on because I have just begun to be able to verbalize how Christ has been rectifying the mess in my own heart over the last couple years. Therefore, I let myself ask these hard questions in order that I may receive a firm foundation to set my Elephant sized desires/questions on rather than letting myself have my desires be superficially propped up on 2x4's that the typical Christian culture so often gives us for support. Original, huh... or not... Luke 18...

"Why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like:he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great."

So here I am. Is my faith so firm, is who I am in Christ as a woman, set and practiced out of a connect between my faith and my heart? Does my daily thoughts and actions concerning self worth come out of what Jesus claims over me and in Me through His Sprit? Do I live like I have a foundation that won't get pummeled in a storm... or loss? Do I really believe that I wouldn't be losing my beauty if I lost my woman parts?

My closet, bathroom drawers, and heart resounds a

...NO.

This situation seems to prove our need and existance of a beauty of something more. Someone more. Someone who causes all the beauty, Jennifer Anniston and you. And the same someone who osmotically goes through the membrane of our flesh to express a Spirit that is always attractive, outwardly, physically... even with scars where life-giving flesh was.

I want to me a woman whose belief in Truth-aligned beauty (both in and out) would be built and acted out of the belief in Christ...even if I lost my woman parts.

Please ask Christ for this woman's hurts and health to be consumed by His hope and healing.. Don't just say read it and say you'll do this or let yourself off the hook, cuz I didn't ask you to stop and pray for her in person. Please really do it... I know how I am...