Bringing Faith to Life
Posts tagged stretchy bands
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.
Motion activated
012 years
How can you prepare to be surprised by God?
My way, truthfully, is to pack every possible option. To bring every book I might need, every piece of equipment I might demonstrate, and more. I prepare and work out the details, sketching and outlining and scratching in more notes in the margin. I prepare out of my fear of failing those who have come expectantly for help, or healing, or direction.
No one can prepare to offer those. There is only One I know who offers those. But still, I prepare. And then I come to Junaluska and I’m bowled over by the change in plan. God says, “Wendy, thank you for your preparations. Now let me just add these few things.” Which change the whole game.
God knows I am not the kind to come empty-handed. He expects me to prepare my heart and my mind. But then to pray, “Lord, help me love these as you love them.” And in rushes surprise. You can’t help but smile at the joy that comes with it.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
I have been surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. People on a journey of faith, come to dive deeper. What do I have to offer them?
…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
I am not naturally caring and serving by nature. I know this. I wake before 5am, according to the illuminated digital display across the room. All else is dark, the fog out my window so dense that nothing but the cross glowing high on the hillside appears through the sliver in my drapes.
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ~ Hebrews 12:1-3
“Just keep looking to the center,” it seems to say. “To your center. I am in the midst of this.”
Our core must be strong. That’s what I teach and show my athletes. And around that strength your joints may move, smoothly, through their full range of motion. The motion they were designed for. I show this to my friends who have come for the workshop:
“Hold yourself, just so. And pull, just so. But keep your core strong, as you strengthen your triceps,” I say. And I am grateful they have “stretchy bands” and are trying it for themselves. My words are completely inept. But they try it. They move it. Then one observes, “Ah, you’ve said something very important: your core must be strong so you can move.” That’s a very familiar message.
A cloud of witnesses. They start with faith and land in fitness. I start with fitness and land in faith. We have taken many roads to get here but have landed in the same place. What a surprise.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. ~ Hebrews 12: 12-13
I think God may have been trying to get my attention in the ladies restroom before the session. When I stood with dripping hands in search of a paper towel. The dispenser had printed directions: “motion activated.”
Surprising the places God will speak a word to you.