The Dancer Who Refused to Rent Her Gift

In 2019, Misty Copeland sat across from a reporter who asked why she had turned down a seven-figure endorsement deal from a major liquor brand. The first African American principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre paused, then said simply, "This body is my instrument. I won't lend it to something that contradicts what it was made for."

Copeland had spent thirty years sculpting every muscle, every tendon, every joint for one purpose — to move audiences through the extraordinary discipline of classical ballet. Her feet had bled. Her shins had fractured. She had fought through six stress fractures and a career-threatening tibial injury. Every cell in her body had been shaped by sacrifice and devotion to her art. To hand that instrument over to sell something that dulled the senses and wrecked the very bodies of her fans? She couldn't do it. Not because alcohol was illegal, but because her body carried a purpose too sacred to rent out for the wrong story.

Paul writes to the Corinthians with that same fierce protectiveness. "You are not your own," he reminds them. "You were bought at a price." The price wasn't a contract or a salary — it was the blood of Christ. And the body that was purchased isn't a rental property we can lease to any desire that knocks on the door. It is a temple. It belongs to the Holy One who redeemed it. Every choice we make with these hands, these eyes, these hearts either honors the One who paid everything — or pretends the price was nothing at all.