Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged strength
Stretch to strengthen: pain of a healing sort
01 year
by wlebolt
in Body, Call to Action, church, Deeper Sensation, faith, In Action, Made to Move, prayer, witness, writing
No one really wants to be stretched. At least not too far, and definitely not when the stretching goes beyond what feels comfortable.
There’s just a certain out-of-control-feeling when someone is pulling you and you don’t know how far they will go, or even if they will stop. If you have ever had physical therapy after an injury or surgery, you know exactly what I’m describing. It’s painful but it’s pain of a healing sort. It helps recover your range of motion, and once you have that, the strengthening can begin. Then you’re on the road to return to action.
While there lots of ways to strengthen — exercise machines, dumbbells, pulleys, weights — it’s likely that when you earn your discharge from the PT gym you’ll be sent home with a lovely parting gift called a resistance band. It’s meant to be your home exercise companion. And it comes with a wonderful secret: When you stretch it, it strengthens you.
I know that sounds a bit counterintuitive, but it’s true. When you pull, it resists, gently. As you pull harder, it stretches, slowly. The harder you pull, the more it stretches and the more that strengthens you. This feels very much like life these days and, to me, very much like the life of faith. Body and soul engaged in a give-and-take which feels very much like exercise.
Apparently, my approach is a bit atypical. While most faith-folk tend to start with the soul and then invite the body along, when I begin with body, my soul always comes along for the joy ride. *
Try for yourself. Here’s a simple prayer routine using the “exercise” band and the words to the praise song, Spirit of the Living God. My daughter Stephanie’s lovely voice accompanies me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mse98SpD1v4]
The movement is prayer. The words are prayer. The music is prayer.
But even better, even after the prayer-exercise is done, the sensation of prayer remains… in the body! The muscles that moved the band — the effort, the stretch, the exertion of prayer — reverberate and reiterate: melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Literally, the prayer is still there.
This is too good to be true, right? Try it again. Become aware of the energy, the symbiosis, the connection of stretch to strengthen. Let your body prayer become fluid, flowing one motion into the next. Body and soul, together. Who could conceive of something so powerful and yet so simple?
*My thanks to the folks at the Upper Room for honoring my unusual approach and inviting me to join them to lead worship at SOULfeast 2013.
No need to let go completely, just loosen your grip
0Tension. It’s the greatest scourge of our times.
Not anxiety, not worry, and not fear. As destructive as these are and as frequently as we are chastised for feeling them or cautioned about employing them, they are not what’s keeping us from moving forward in our days.
What’s really upending us is tension. Tensing is our body’s answer to what ails us and confronts us. Be ready, it says, don’t get caught off guard. Be diligent, don’t be found unaware. Be clever, don’t be fooled. These “be’s” have us wound tight and ready to spring. The irony is that the chronic contraction has nearly disabled our ability to move at all.
How much better off we’d be if we all took a deep breath with a big exhale to calm ourselves enough to actually feel our physical. To attend to the inward, to go deeper, to sit and chat a while with those emotions and sensations. Why not ask their names and where they hale from? Perhaps they’ll give you a temporary pass to explore just a bit, or at least negotiate a temporary ceasefire.
It’s funny what you find when you go there and see what shakes out. I went rummaging this morning, wondering about the root of my reaction to gripping tightly, and there I discovered a small child of five or six holding fast to the string of a red balloon. She was smiling up at her mom and dad as they walked together to the car after the school fair, until she saw the treasured prize begin to float up into the air. Soon it was aloft on the wind, growing smaller and smaller. Tears. Dismay. Gone.
We hold tight to things we love. But life has a way of teaching us that no earthly thing is forever. That we’d do well to hold it loosely, give it some breathing room and see where it takes us. If we’re on speaking terms, maybe it will tell us what we need to hear or show us what we need to do. If we are lucky and we listen carefully, it may explain itself to us — it may explain ourself to us — and that is profound gift.
Did you know you had been clenching your fists? grinding your teeth? furrowing your brow? What if you were to say, Hey, it’s okay to let your guard down for a moment. Take a break from the front lines. Release the weight of responsibility you’ve been bench-pressing. Relax and let another shoulder the burden for a moment. Allow yourself to recover and regroup.
The most amazing thing happens when we step back and exhale the breath we didn’t realize we’d been holding: the collapse we were expecting doesn’t come. We straighten instead. And, in our straightening, we extend.
No need to let go completely, just loosen our grip. Look at all the options we’ve been missing. Imagine if I had seen then that all any child needed was a small weight at the end of her balloon string so she need not worry. I’d be set for life!
Dialogue with the World: today you have some explaining to do
25 years
World, you have some explaining to do!
This question needs an answer and I’m done waiting.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
To strengthen them, World replies.
But a person who is dear to me is now very weak.
Ah, but you are only looking at what you can see.
And you can see more?
Not exactly, but I think you’re missing something.
What’s that?
You, of sound body, are fixated on muscle tone as your strength representative.
On regular heartbeat and evenness of breath as indication of your vitality.
You are looking with near sight. I am seeing into the distance.
What do you see from a distance?
Not, from a distance. In the distance.
I am standing right there with you. In you, right here.
Looking out upon.
Oh, what do you see? Help me see, too.
Shift your gaze, dear one.
Look past weakness, to strength.
Look past rhythmic, to constant.
Look past steady, to stalwart.
Look past what’s before you to what’s beyond you and invite it into focus.
What do you see now?
I see
Quite miraculous is the human mind, this amazing collection of circuits that have stood the test of time. Amazing that we, though lowly humans, are able to encounter our perception and grant entry to the wisdom of the universe.
In our weakness, we are strong and getting stronger.
Use it or lose it. done.
0Use it or lose it applies in, as far as I can tell, every situation. But what I’ve learned from those aging gracefully is there is no need to tell them that “no pain, no gain” is just bunk.
Why tone?
06 years
Muscle tone: the resting tension in a muscle. It’s not just about buff, cut, or 6-pack abs. Tone comes from effort, preparing muscles so we are ready to respond without delay.
Every last little one
0The little ones who cling and cooperate
who listen to instructions
who raise their hands
and smile to answer questions…
They fill you up and keep you coming back.
They’ll do fine.
The ones who resist and refuse
who defy you to “make them”
who turn a cold shoulder or don’t turn at all
and scowl when you call on them…
These sap your strength and make you wonder why you tried.
They are the reason you came.
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. ~ Luke 15:7
Exchanging Fear and Worry for Thanks
010 years
New every morning. Or after a nap, a good run, a walk around the lake. It’s not the rising and setting of sun that sets my mood, it’s the respite. A time to let the mind wander and tippy toe over the field of neurons who happily spark and ignite one another on their merry way to thoughts, images, expressions and feelings. Completely unguided by the slave driver who, the rest of the time, cracks the whip….
Get with it! Shape up! You have a deadline to meet! Conference is coming, you know! People are gonna expect things from you! Are you gonna be ready? Heck, is anyone gonna come?
Oh my goodness, why do I talk to myself that way? Take a seat, will ya, and come back a bit later when a swift kick in the pants is in order.
Funny how that guy doesn’t take orders. He’s all about giving orders, but he uses every trick in the book to get his way. All of sudden, he’s got me moving but my motivation is fear and worry, not excitement and energy. Lord, I don’t want to row this life with fear and worry as my paddles. I want to set out to sea with oars of steel and a good strong stroke, waves take me as they will. You call the strokes. You be my Coxswain.
How good it would be if all I had to do was put some muscle into it and not have to keep looking up for land or landmark or buoy. But there are reefs out there and sharks, you know. There are swells that would swamp me and ocean liners that would smash me to smithereens. Who in their right mind would set out into that on their own?
Oh yeah, me. But the dangers that surround are not nearly as ugly as the ones within. The ones who question whether I should have set out in the first place. Turn back! While you still can!
And then the dark settles. I can’t see a thing, can only feel the muscles pulling at the oars. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. And I am strong and growing stronger. I am! I am capable. I have a body that listens and works with me, that recovers and tries again, that coordinates itself. Good grief, think of all those neurons and their signals to all those muscle fibers that contract in complicated sequence to choreograph a single pull. What an amazing feat is one stroke. And then another.
I can do this.
And I AM grateful. What an opportunity I have before me. How exciting this all is. Who would have ever thought this would happen? To me.
Suddenly the demanding voice is different. Not shouts and commands but instructions and direction. My thanks for the miracle of muscle and motion that has turned the tide. I see and hear anew. And the sun rises.
Love Strong
010 years
If we love with heart, soul and mind, is that enough? What about strength?
The Pharisees tested Jesus asking, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt 22: 36-40)
Heart, soul and mind may be turned to Him, but it takes strength to love your neighbor as yourself. Mental, physical and emotional fortitude are the work of a lifetime and the attention in every day. People are hard to understand, hard to reach and sometimes, very hard to empathize with. But the Lord, insists.
May you be strong enough to face the day, and may the day itself leave you stronger for tomorrow, for the love of yourself, in the service of your neighbor, by the grace of a merciful, all powerful and unimaginably strong God.
Strength presents itself in the doing
312 years
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13
This scripture is on my mind because my daughter is “doing the talk” for the Fellowship of Christian athletes at her school today and this is ‘her’ verse. Not sure whether she chose it or it was chosen for her.
Anyway, this morning it’s mine. And I embark on my day with a mighty, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me…” and a voice a bit louder than a whisper says, “just not all at once.” And this gets right to the heart of the matter. There is so much to be done. So many things needed. So many in need. And in the morning I think, “Yes! A new day.” and I look at my to-do list, neatly categorized and boldly written in black pen. And I think, “Yes! I can do that and that and, oh, I really need to do that, too. And then this has been on the list a long time. I really should either do it or take it off the list.” You can see my problem.
I am trying to do all things through me who strengthens me. And I can beat myself up about this. Re-dedicate to be more organized. Cross off a few things to shorten the list. Pray more and see if a Mighty list appears, complete with a numbering system in the left hand column. Or…I can just get started.
Because that’s what occurred to me when I typed this verse. “Strengthens” is a verb in the present tense. Meaning, I need not wait to be strengthened before doing. It wouldn’t be wise for me to wait for the starting gun to sound. Because God’s strength will be there in the doing. During. Done deal. I just need to look for it there. I can count on this. Anticipate it, even. God won’t hide it; God’s not like that.
Though I must remember, after, to give thanks for the strength that was mine in the moment I was made able. Not to presume on it next time, but perhaps to feel a bit less anxious awaiting it’s arrival.
Which reminds me of this quote from Seth Godin’s blog yesterday:
“If we define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance, we can also understand its antonym, anticipation.”
Seth Godin
Anticipating God will be here, presently. God says so. So, what am I waiting for???