Your body is pretty amazing. And it can also be a source of shame, anxiety, and past trauma. Counting calories, comparing your body to other bodies, and wondering where your pre-baby baby went can steal the joy from the awesomely-terrific body God gave to you and only you.
You want to enjoy your body again. You want to offer it grace. You don’t want to view it as a place of sin and lust and temptation, but a place of safety, hope, and peace.
Here are 20 curated resources to help you give grace to your body, everything from books to podcast episodes to articles; from shame to body image to weight loss to failing health. Many of the areas you struggle with are found in one spot, right here.
You don’t need to read every article or listen to every podcast, just find what you’re most interested in and start there.
Resources to find a Christian counselor
- Association of Biblical Counselors
- American Association of Christian Counselors
- Global Counseling Network
The FCC requires that I tell you that I’m an Amazon Affiliate, which means I earn a bit of commission on each sale. But don’t worry there’s no added cost to you! Also, all the “About” descriptions are taken from Amazon.
Books
The Body by Bill Bryson
About: “Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Brysonesque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular.”
Why you’ll love it: Bryson has such an infectious joy for his topic, and shares so many stories and illustrations that the book doesn’t read like an academic text, but as a homage and honoring of the human body. His delight comes through each page, and you cannot help but think at the end, Man, God made our bodies pretty amazingly well!
Secular/Faith-based: Secular
Immune by Philipp Dettmer
About: “Enlivened by engaging full-color graphics and immersive descriptions, Immune turns one of the most intricate, interconnected, and confusing subjects—immunology—into a gripping adventure through an astonishing alien landscape. Immune is a vital and remarkably fun crash course in what is arguably, and increasingly, the most important system in the body.”
Why you’ll love it: Before COVID, I never had any interest in learning about my immune system, but after the pandemic, I’m like How does this thing work anyway? If you love to learn and hate being bored, this book is for you. My favorite part was when Dettmer describes one immune-system cell (the neutrophil) as a chimpanzee on coke wielding a machine.
Secular/Faith-based: Secular
Mothers, Daughters & Body Image by Hillary L. McBride
About: “In Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image McBride tells her own story of recovery from an eating disorder, and how her struggles led her to dream of a new vision for womanhood—from one without body shame, negative comparisons, or insecurities, to one of freedom, connection, and acceptance.”
Why you’ll love it: I’m not going to lie: I thought I might find staunch rules and do this/don’t do that principles, but this was the most grace-giving, freeing book about body image and how we can gently pass on a healthy view of our bodies to our daughters even if we aren’t a model of good body image ourselves.
Secular/Faith-based: Secular
This Too Shall Last by K.J. Ramsey
About: “This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don’t. Together, we can encounter grace in the middle, where living with suffering that lingers can mean receiving God’s presence that lasts.”
Why you’ll love it: You won’t read any sugar-coating of physical suffering, only grace to glean when your body isn’t operating as it “should.” Ramsey’s words are true, kind, and point us back to Christ, the creator of our bodies and the one who became embodied to save us.
Secular/Faith-based: Faith-based
Resources to lower the volume on your inner critic
Podcast episodes to give your body grace
- Grace In Real Life:#22: Are you emotionally eating too?
- Grace In Real Life: #51: Delete + Reset: Body Image, Weight, Jean Size, and Jesus with Jami Amerine
- Grace In Real Life: #75: Hormones + Grace: Let’s get real
- The Lazy Genius: #217 Let’s talk about your body, Part One
- The Lazy Genius: #218 Let’s talk about your body, Part Two
- The Lazy Genius: How to listen to your body with Dr. Hillary McBride
- You are Well Health Podcast (any episode!)
Articles to give your body grace
- What God says when your body isn’t what it used to be
- Why losing weight will never make you feel “enough”
- How to stop your obsession with calories, jean size, and pumpkin pie
- How losing the baby weight almost broke my brain and stole my joy
- God’s words for the mom who is ill, on bed rest, or not “measuring up”