Home > Singles > Single Minded
This Precious Flesh
by Camerin Courtney
May 3, 2006
I blame the Eastern Europeans and their friendly, gregarious ways. They ruined my little experiment this past January. I was going to see how long into the new year I could get before someone hugged me. I know this sounds like an exercise in patheticness, but I was trying to make a point about how little human contact your typical single receives.
I had visions of going weeks, maybe even a month, until someone reached out and touched me. Instead, 2006 started on a Sunday, and on my standing Thursday night gig of volunteering with an English as a Second Language (ESL) class, I got hugged by Dula from Kosovo and Sofia from Ukraine. While it was delightful to receive such a warm reception from these international friends whom I hadn't seen in three weeks due to our class's Christmas break, my experiment went bust in two heavily perfumed embraces.
This recent Easter weekend, I felt like God orchestrated his own little touch-oriented experiment on me—a much more successful one. I traveled to be with my out-of-state family, as usual, where I get to slip into my alter-ego: Cool Aunt Cam. This time I was especially pumped because my nephew, Carson, was coming to the airport (the "plane station" in his lingo) with my mom and sister to pick me up. Instant nephew time!
He greeted me with I-haven't-seen-you-since-Christmas coyness, but let me pick him up so I could show him "my" plane. And in one quick heft of his three-year-old frame up to my hip, I was afforded the gift I'd been anticipating for weeks—snuggling next to his wonderful little body. As much as I love our sporadic phone chats (during which we usually discuss his obsession with trains), and the holiday cards in which he scribbles his creative flourishes (which my sister usually has to translate in a caption), they pale in comparison to in-person time.
I joked with a friend recently about how Carson feels like my little loofa. Like if I could just high-five and hug and snuggle his precious flesh enough, letting his hands and feet, face and arms come into contact with my typically touch-free skin, that something dead and hard in me would fall away. And something softer and more tender would be revealed underneath. Such is the healing, restorative power of physical touch.
Throughout the rest of my visit home, I had a heightened sense of human contact. Holding hands with my family around the dinner table to pray before meals. Passing the communion plate into my grandfather's wrinkled 90-year-old hands. Receiving good-night hugs from my mom and dad. Shaking hands with strangers at church on Sunday morning. Nestling next to Carson in his Fisher Price tent on my sister and brother-in-law's living room floor.
But instead of this being simply a time to fill up on positive human contact, like a squirrel stashing away enough food for the long winter months ahead, God directed my all-too-introspective eyes upward.
Lying there in our make-shift campout, nestled next to Carson's play-sweaty body, I was reminded and thankful all over again for a God who came to this planet in the flesh. Who walked this earth, embraced children, traveled with his friends, ate with strangers, healed by touching, and eventually took our sin upon his sinless body, allowing it to be broken for us. And then rising again in that heavenly flesh, whole and healed for us all.
Once again redemption crashed into my single, broken, touch-deprived world, and I marveled at a God who can transform a deficit into a teachable moment. Standing with my family that Easter Sunday morning singing "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," I understood a bit more the countless generations of pre-Christ believers eagerly awaiting the Word made flesh, the hosts of angels heralding his physical entree into this world, Mary's wonder and awe at her divine boy, the eager hands of the woman who'd been bleeding for years, the betraying and punishing acts of those threatened by Christ's very presence, the utter grief of those looking upon Jesus' broken, crucified body. And the glorious wonder of resurrected flesh.
In the weeks following Easter, I've found myself a bit more willing to be the hug-initiator, embracing my friends and loved ones with fresh appreciation that sometimes we get to be Christ's hands and feet and arms to one another. I've been a bit more grateful to be a member of the body of Christ. And I've used those occasional melancholy moments of longing for a special someone's hand to hold as a reminder of the anticipation of generations of believers for the Christ child. I thank him again that this promise has been fulfilled—and praise him for what I do have: an ever-present Savior who will one day return to bring us all home.
And One who sometimes inhabits the arms of friendly Eastern European women and precious, sweaty three-year-olds to physically remind me of his love.
We welcome your feedback and brainstorms at: SinglesNewsletter@ChristianityToday.com
Sign up for the Singles Newsletter and receive a new article from Camerin plus community updates in your inbox every other week!
Copyright © 2006 ChristianityToday.com
|
 |
|
|
eHarmony is a completely new way to build a relationship. We turn the process around, so you learn about people from the inside-out before you get involved.
Falling in love still takes chemistry, but eHarmony gives you the confidence to take the first step, knowing that you and your matches are truly compatible for the long-run.
Only eHarmony creates matches based on 29 proven dimensions of compatibility and over 30 years of relationship expertise. Combining this knowledge and experience with our commitment to personal care ensures that eHarmony will work for you.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
