When the Body Can No Longer Be Fed, What Remains?
Natasha Kennedy on Lack, Longing, and the Sufficiency of Christ
A debilitating chronic illness took away Natasha Kennedy’s ability to literally eat or drink. What it gave back has become the heart of her message to a culture of abundance. She knows the reality of lack firsthand in a way most of us can't imagine. Out of that loss has come a voice speaking directly to readers in seasons of suffering, longing, and unmet need — with a message grounded in the conviction that Jesus alone is enough.
“As I walk through life in a body that cannot swallow food, I will always experience the temptation to turn my head to the right or to the left — toward other pleasures or comforts that promise to fill my lack,” said Kennedy. “But this emptiness is my allotted suffering; it is my appointed opportunity to see Jesus fill my emptiness. For him to be enough. In a world of excess and abundance, losing my ability to eat forced me to embrace lack and find provision and sustenance in the person of Christ alone.”
“As I walk through life in a body that cannot swallow food, I will always experience the temptation to turn my head to the right or to the left — toward other pleasures or comforts that promise to fill my lack,” said Kennedy. “But this emptiness is my allotted suffering; it is my appointed opportunity to see Jesus fill my emptiness. For him to be enough. In a world of excess and abundance, losing my ability to eat forced me to embrace lack and find provision and sustenance in the person of Christ alone.”
Through her remarkable story of choosing to trust Jesus' promise that he indeed is enough, Natasha encourages readers, in the midst of their own experience of lack, pain, and suffering, to cling to Jesus and not let go until they receive their blessing.
Her testimony lands with particular weight for audiences wrestling with chronic illness, unanswered prayer, caregiving, grief, and the quieter ache of a life that hasn't turned out as hoped. Kennedy writes and speaks not from theory but from a body that has been stripped of one of life's most basic gifts and found Christ sufficient in the space that was left behind.
Her testimony lands with particular weight for audiences wrestling with chronic illness, unanswered prayer, caregiving, grief, and the quieter ache of a life that hasn't turned out as hoped. Kennedy writes and speaks not from theory but from a body that has been stripped of one of life's most basic gifts and found Christ sufficient in the space that was left behind.
Natasha Kennedy is an author and illustrator based in Seattle. She is passionate about the relationship between art and theology and enjoys sharing the beauty and truth of Christ with the world through her work. Natasha suffers from several debilitating chronic illnesses and an invisible disability that causes her chronic pain and prohibits her ability to eat. She is married to her husband, Lindsay, homeschools her four children, and has three cats, Curtains, Fuzzy, and Fauxe.
