Last night I had an overdue appointment with a box of Dark Brown #31.  Ironically, I used to tease (criticize?) my mom about trying to cover up her “crown of wisdom.” I might need to include an apology in her Mother’s Day card.  Now that I’m going a tad (okay, more than a tad …) gray, I understand.  I understand that we are all getting older and our bodies are all decaying, and there’s ultimately nothing we can do to stop that earthly process.  A bad headache yesterday just reinforced that I’m looking forward to my heavenly body. Do you ever feel that way?

Earthly Bodies:  groaning

But headaches and gray hair are small matters. Recent news from friends about degenerative arthritis, an unknown illness, and pancreatic cancer made me long for a heavenly body for them, along with an eternity of no pain or sorrow. After all, “for in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,” (2 Corinthians 5:2).  Our earthly bodies reveal the groan through headaches, gray hair, and disease.

Earthly bodies: changing

I am confident, though, that our bodies will change. We are both body and spirit, and though death separates the two, we will one day be reunited and changed. Our resurrection bodies will be the glorified form of our earthly bodies. When Jesus was resurrected, His physical wounds were visible, He ate, He talked, He walked, and He could be touched. He also passed through walls and suddenly appeared. The resurrected, glorified body of Jesus gives us a clue about the heavenly body we can look forward to. “We will be like him,” (1 John 3:2).

Glorious heavenly body

I hope God will give me Dark Brown #31 in heaven, but maybe I would like a heavenly gray. I can be sure, however, that God will change my “lowly body to be like His glorious body,” (Philippians 3:21).  For now, our earthly bodies “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly” (Romans 8:23) for the heavenly body to come.

Are you struggling with physical pain today? Are you groaning about growing older? Do you feel like your physical body is falling apart!?!?  It is.  You are.  But we won’t always be.  There is coming a day for the followers of Christ to be given a new and improved (how’s that for an understatement?), glorified body like Jesus!  Be encouraged today that a heavenly body is in your future.

 Please feel free to share in the comments or shoot me an email (Contact tab on top) to let me know if you have a physical need I can pray about with you.