How much of our identity have we placed in the body? We watch it age, notice its limitations, and sometimes mistake its changing condition for a change in who we are.

Today's lesson offers a profoundly freeing perspective: We are not our bodies. We are as God created us, whole and eternal, regardless of what happens to our physical form.

The Course invites us to see the body as neither good nor bad, neither holy nor sinful. It is simply a temporary means of communication, something we can use in service of love.

We can care for it without making it our identity. We can appreciate its usefulness without fearing its eventual passing.

Like a garment we wear for a while and eventually lay aside, the body serves its purpose without defining the one who wears it.

This understanding does not diminish the body. It frees us to live more peacefully within it.

Our hands can offer kindness. Our voices can speak forgiveness. Our presence can become an expression of love.

And as the years pass, we can remember that what God created does not grow old.

The body changes. Love remains.

I am not this body. I am still as God made me.