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This was a devotional about Psalms 139:13-14 presented at a Women’s Bible Study.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
Maybe I’m not like the normal woman, but I read that phrase and wonder.
On a good day, I feel my body coming apart at the seams. 
I feel like telling God, “Maybe You should have made those stitches a little bit tighter,” 
or “Can you check that knot right here, I think it’s undone.”
It’s ALL I CAN DO to push myself to get here.
I’m a nervous wreck by the time I arrive. Let alone think godly thoughts! Then talk!

For You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Ever think about your skin, other than how you want to get rid of those wrinkles and sags or that ugly birth mark?
Your skin is just the covering for your body, yet your skin does a lot.
Your skin provides your body the first line of defense against any attack. 
Even something as small as a paper cut brings an imposed quarantine to the area to prevent germs from going septic.
Beneath its surface, lymph nodes absorb and disseminate anything harmful.
When the temperature gets hot, your cells open and sweat to maintains 98.6’ F.
When cold, your cells contract, giving goose bumps and warmth. 

Ever think about the unevenness of your skin? 
Fairness would not be a good thing.
The skin on your feet is thicker than on your eyelid.
Your feet protect from all the body’s weight and pounding.
Whereas your eyelid must be delicate and fragile, while lubricating and protecting your eye.

I could go on and on about how marvelous just the skin is.
The Bible sums it all by saying,  
For You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
God knew what He was doing.
God knew what He was doing when He made YOU.

Science would have us believe a baby is just lump of cells that somehow finds life.
But God is working behind the scenes to form that baby into what He deems best.
He did it while you were a baby.
Do you question your worth?
God doesn’t.
The Bible says, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

How does stress affect your body?
God knows what stress does to every cell of your body.
Think about your finger and toe nails.
Without them, we would not have counter-pressure and therefore could not have dexterity. We could not pick up things.

God designed our bodies to need pressure and stress.
Going back to our skin, it operates on a selective pressure system. 
Water, or anything else, goes from high concentration to low concentration. 
In the blood, that enables food to be absorbed into each cell and waste to be removed.
Yet, your skin cells only absorb what they need, not all that is available.
Otherwise in a bath, you might explode---with all the water available.
Or in salt water, you’d be more than a prune.
God designed all those pressures.
But He also designed our bodies to work with those pressures.
God gave our skin to monitor what our body can take.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

In spite of all that, when I read this verse, I doubt. 
Am I really fearfully and wonderfully made?
Ever be singing in church and thinking about the words of the song, and those questions come, “Is that really true?”
Instead of praising, I fight with my doubts.

The psalmist did too. (v. 14)
As if to put all those doubts to rest, the psalmist re-tells himself,
Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.
I know that.

Know how David fought his doubts?
He continued to praise.
Praise keeps doubts away.

Did you come today feeling worthless?
God has given you worth.

Wondering how you were going to hang on?
God knows the pressures on your life.
God knows the pressure your body has.

Know what He wants you to do with it all?
Praise Him.
God’s got this.
Isn’t that worth all the praise we can give?


Displaying 1 comment

Guess I'm a little behind on my emails, but know you understand. Really love these verses, think of them often and have read a book by that title, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. I like reading about the wonders of our bodies, every little thing is incredible. Praise God. We must talk one of these days.

I write about what matters...to you---
women, wives and moms---
about your family, faith and future.
I write about what's hard, what helps and what heals.
I show you how it's done. And not done.
I hold your hand as you find what matters to the Savior.
And let go of those things that mattered to you, but not to Him.
I write about what matters...to Him.
               Sonya Contreras

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Author of Biblical fiction, married to my best friend, and challenged by eight sons’ growing pains as I write about what matters.

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