I recently had a conversation with a friend about the kind of person you want to be, especially when it comes to finding a spouse. I don’t think it’s advisable to change to fit a specific person. But what about in a more general way trying to become the kind of person that the person you would want to marry would want to marry?

If you are a woman, think about the kind of man you want to marry and the kind of woman he would love; Become that woman. If you are a man, think about the kind of woman you want to marry and the kind of man she would love; Become that man.

That way you aren’t changing yourself to suit a specific person, but a kind of person. It’s about trying to become a good and admirable person.

I’ve been thinking of that word: becoming. Here are two different definitions of the word.

Becoming:
1. Verb: To undergo change or development.
2. Adjective: Attractively suitable.

We don’t use this second definition very much anymore, but I’ve been thinking about how linked they actually are. The goal is to undergo change and develop as a person so that you are attractive. Not just physically attractive, but actually attractive, inwardly attractive. 

But how do we become inwardly attractive? How do we undergo that change? Who are we supposed to become, other than somebody someone else might find suitable and attractive?

The answer is a simple one, though not easy.

“My friend, go to the God of the Word, and thus to the Word itself, and so enter through the door into the sheepfold, that is, into the church, and you will be enlightened; and then as from a mountain top you will see for yourself the goings and wanderings, not only of the many but your own also previously in the gloomy forest below.” (True Christian Religion 177)

Only from the Lord in His Word can we see the gloom in which we have wandered! Only from the Lord and His Word can we correct our footsteps. It is through repentance and regeneration that we undergo change and development. It is approaching the Lord and being the person that He wants us to be that makes us attractively suitable.

And the real end result is that we are becoming angels for the Lord, and so all the efforts we are making to better ourselves is ultimately for the Lord and His Kingdom. And not only is He creating a space for us to live in Heaven, but we create a space for Him to come and live in us now.

“The Lord dwells in what is His own with man, and man in those things which are from the Lord, and thus in the Lord.” (Doctrine of Life 102)

How important is it to belong?  What must we do to belong?  Who decides if we belong or not?

These were not questions I seriously asked myself, but through a series of incidents some years ago, I found a satisfying answer.  I also found, along the way, that you often need to find your own answers to have the point really sink in.

Even so, I thought it might be useful to share my experience for others who might be seriously asking the question, “Where do I belong?”

As you might expect, the “where do I belong?”  issue for me was grounded in the issue of abortion.  In the 1980’s, when I first became aware of the scope of legalized abortion-on-demand, I found myself reading, thinking and talking about the issue a great deal.  I was surprised to find that people I knew were not shocked by the statistics that I was reading about.  One and a half million abortions in the U.S. a year.  Four thousand a day.

I’ve been thinking recently about what my body can tell me, and the power that can come with paying attention to it.

Since having kids, I’ve been on a journey of working to understand how to help them understand their own bodies and their experience of having a body.  One of the things I didn’t know was the many ways that our feelings affect our bodies.  And in that way, I realise that I have been very out of touch with my body for my whole life.  I didn’t have a developed sense of body awareness, and I didn’t have a wide vocabulary for describing my physical experiences.  I’ve been learning as I work to understand these things for my kids as to the power just having the correct words can bring.  

As I’ve learned to identify muscles and physical experiences more accurately I’ve been able to understand what is happening inside my body.  For example, you can pay attention to how to engage your stomach muscles when you’ve had it all explained carefully in terms of how to feel those different muscles and how to get them to engage.