Skin and Bones

I’ve been doing some thinking about skin and bones. It seems my life has been marked by my skin and bones. In the first grade I was the kid who got passed from person to person in the piggyback relay race because I was so small. As I recall, there were two of us and we were simply described using the word “refugee”. Maybe that was a little foreshadowing for my future - it wasn’t exactly a funny name six years later.
By sixth grade, when I actually understood what it meant to be a refugee, my bones became the source of great irritation. One, because I was growing at about 3 inches per day, and two, because the kids behind me in line used to grab at my bony shoulder blades to aggravate me. In junior high I assumed I would grow out of my bony phase. I was sure that by the time I was a senior I’d be huge; the guy everyone was afraid to tackle in rugby. As it turned out I ended up being the guy who was lifted into the air during lineouts because my teammates exerted just about zero muscle strength to do it. As for college, and all the earnest prayers I could muster, the great freshmen 15 evaded me as did the sophomore, junior and senior 15s. I even had a challenge with a high school buddy to see who would get the 15 first. As far as I know, I lost. Or rather…am losing.
All that brings me to where I am now. Throughout my life I have stood out as one of those skinny guys – skin and bones. That has all changed and the miracle of it all is that I didn’t even have to put on any weight! I have finally found a place where I fit in. I am not sure what it says about Sudanese nutrition but in Sudan my skin and bones is average; if not slightly above average. Perhaps it is because the term “refugee” is about as common here as fast food is in the US but nonetheless I blend right in here – in this nation of skin and bones. Mind you, I have lived in Africa my whole life and have never been able to convince my skin to change color, so I don’t quite blend in, but if it was a matter of body structure I could evade taxes and never be found in the vastness of South Sudan. Skin and Bones.
But seriously, I have been doing some thinking about skin and bones. I have been thinking about my skin and bones and how this body of mine just isn’t how I wish it was. How it fails me completely when I’m tired, and gets sick when I need it to be strong, and how inevitably today and tomorrow its going to carry me into some muck of sin and I’ll see once again just how ridiculous this skin and bones of mine really is. I’ve been thinking about how corrupted it is – some things never change – I have broken my foot/leg three times because my frame couldn’t handle the life I live and spiritually speaking my skin and bones just never heal; this skin and bones is a mess.
But then I realize there is some good news. I am still a “refugee”. I am a refugee trapped in the poor nutrition and ill treatment our fallen world is made of. The good news is that one day I’ll finally make it home. And on that day I get to have a new body; something more than skin and bones. And I’ll get a new name that has nothing to do with not belonging, being chased away, or being a foreigner and everything to do with being loved and cherished and new. For now I’m still a refugee, which isn’t a whole lot of fun. After all I’m still skin and bones, living in a skin and bones world. But then again so was Abraham and David and Paul, they were all skin and bones like me; the stories are there to prove it. They were all skin and bones; falty, fumbling flesh that doesn’t feel to great in this life but I know they’ll be waiting for me in their new bodies, with their new names to welcome me home.