I'm just fine.

2 Corinthians 4:16 (ESV)

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

Pearl was one of the most enthusiastic Christians, even though she suffered through the pain of polio and all of its complications for many years. When people would greet her and inquire, “How are you today?” she would cheerfully answer, “Just fine!” Those who knew what Pearl went through in life—difficulties including being confined to a wheelchair and losing her fiancée because of the polio—sometimes questioned her sincerity. “How can you say you’re fine when you are suffering so much?” Pearl’s sincere response was: “How I feel has very little to do with how I am. You see, the part of me that hurts is just a shell, not the real me, and the real me is just fine!”

What Pearl called a shell, the apostle Paul calls an “earthly tent” (2 Corinthians 5:1). And the “real me” that Pearl referred to, the apostle calls the inward being (4:16). Although Pearl’s earthly tent was painful and perishing, she realized that it was, after all, just temporary housing for her inward being. She trusted the promise of her living Lord that one day her temporary housing would be exchanged for a permanent home waiting for her in heaven. That was the reason for her confidence. But until that point, the “inward” Pearl was conscious of being renewed daily by the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life through her Savior Jesus.

How are you today? Is your earthly tent drooping? Remember, Jesus Christ is your Savior and Lord, and because of that a perfect body awaits you one day. But until then, no matter what’s on the outside, on the inside you can say, “I’m just fine!”

Dear Lord, thank You for the perfect body that awaits us in heaven. Until the day we reach our true home always keep our eyes focused on You. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.