Touched by God, pg. 2,
an excerpt from The Praying Life
by Deborah Douglas

< Prev | Page 1 2

And then, in a flash, I knew myself to be a net, being mended. For a moment, it was Jesus’ own hands I felt on my back, carefully reconnecting the places that had lost their moorings. I had never before permitted myself to imagine Jesus actually touching my body--my mind and heart, yes, of course; I spoke freely, even glibly, of being “touched” in that way--but really to feel the touch of Jesus on my skin was a revelation for me.

It was also a new thought that I, in my flesh and bones, might be valued by God. As valued as a fishing net, anyway. And wasn’t that one of Jesus’ commissioning promises to the disciples, that they would become “fishers of people”?

To the extent that I ever let myself think of myself as useful or precious to God, it was only because of my mind or my work or my words. Proper little gnostic that I had unconsciously become, I assumed that God valued only the “spiritual” in me.

But maybe--oh, revolutionary thought--Jesus was concerned about the mending and healing of my body as something he cared about, something he valued enough to mend when it was, like a fishing net, frayed by much hard use.

That was the beginning of the healing within me of the separation I had caused between my (unimportant) physical identity and my (important) intellectual and spiritual identity.

But it was only the beginning--God had only begun, that day, to heal my severed sense of self.

Another time, months later, in the midst of a massage, it occurred to me that Leah was kneading the muscles of my calf as though they were bread dough. All at once, spontaneously, I knew myself to be, in my body as well as in my mind, bread in the making, under God’s kneading hands.

Without analyzing it or studying it--completely without benefit of commentary, concordance, or footnote--I knew in my bones that God was at work in me for my own transforming as surely as a woman who stirs a measure of yeast into her flour, a sacramental mystery as deep and as ordinary as bread on the table, bread on the altar, bread in the mouth.

And then again, just the other day, as Leah’s discerning hands were loosening tension in my shoulders, I felt like clay in her hands--clay stiff and resistant at first, but surrendering in trust and gratitude to her shaping touch.
Instantly, the word of God came to me as it had to Jeremiah: “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand” (18:6). Once again, I felt myself invited to appropriate the formative reality of God at the level of my body, in the reality of my clay-ness, deep in my bones.

The felt reality of God present in my life, creating, healing, shaping at the level of my bodiliness, has been a great gift to me in middle age. At this point, as never before, I know and feel myself to be in God’s hands--not as a machine to be “fixed” but as a beloved, well-known creature: as earthy and tangible as a fishing net, as bread dough, as clay.

Finally, by the grace of God--by way of meditation and massage--I am beginning to be able, in body, mind and spirit, to honor the God who became flesh, at work and at home in my own flesh and bones.

<Prev | Page 1 2

Excerpts from The Praying Life ©2003 by Deborah Smith Douglas are used with permission
from Morehouse Publishing. For ordering information, visit Morehouse Publishing.
Explorefaith.org receives no proceeds from the sales of The Praying Life.

(Return to Top)