I want to celebrate here that exercise and strength training (even!) have been kept in an appropriate place in my life…in balance…since we became members at Auburn Racquet and Fitness Club in early February. Before then, I knew that I needed to learn how NOT to fear exercise and strength training. My history is one of excessive exercise and obsession, but it has been a LONG time since I struggled with that–I have been afraid to try again with any diligence. So since becoming members of ARFC, I have toyed with strength training again. This time, though, I don’t keep a log. I don’t keep track of weights, sets, repetitions. In the old days, I did with hyper-vigilance. Now, I just want to have fun. I do what I feel like doing and I know I am getting stronger, but I don’t have a clue from time to time how much stronger. I like it that way.
I haven’t gotten the need to do cardio completely figured out yet. I play racquetball with the kids and sometimes with someone else who may come along. Sometimes that works for getting my heart rate up. It always works for fun! Which is really my main goal! 🙂
A couple of weeks ago, I joined the juniors in their racquetball agility class. They have a GREAT racquetball pro at ARFC. Richard is a gift from God that has fallen from heaven for our family! I am not kidding! Without going into all the details (like his 20-20 program that has gotten Daniel having fun AND getting stronger and fitter), let me just say that he has taken an interest in our family and been incredibly supportive of our desire to have fun and to get healthier, too.
So, that day a couple of weeks ago, for 20 minutes or so, I got one of the most fun and intensive workouts. It was a series of speed and footwork drills moving in and out amongst rope ladders stretched out on the floor. Granted, I was like an elephant compared to the two 17 year old boys and the coach (who is the most amazing 62 year old I have ever met…doesn’t look a day over 40 except for salt and pepper hair!). I was in slow motion to their quickie little steps, but it was fun and silly all at once.
Anyhow, my desire is to move my body in an utterly delightful, enjoyable, worshipful way multiple times each week and to experience a “practical fitness” that I notice when I feed or ride the horses or do other chores around the place. I also hope to bike and hike with friends and family without being miserable. One thing about working at website design (something I am phasing out) and writing (something I am “phasing in”)…you sit on your rear a LOT!
Anyhow, this is the first time I have a sense that balance is happening. I am amazed and delighted.
How about for you? Do you have ways of moving your body that are, for you, an expression of worship? Does movement give you joy? Do you, like the guy in “Chariots of Fire,” sense God’s pleasure when you run, or kick box, or spin, or…??? Tell us about it!
After the silence of the Sabbath, the angels must have been holding their breath to see what all of the inhabitants of earth would do in response to the Father’s gift…an empty tomb! Jesus had risen!
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms… ~ Ephesians 1:18-20
1 “Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.
3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
~ Hosea 6:1-3
After the rabble and agony of the previous day, the Sabbath following the crucifixion of Jesus was penetratingly quiet. There are times when silence is louder than any cacophony. This day was one of those.
Disciples of Jesus, having stolen away into hiding to avoid being accused and punished as one of the “King of the Jews'” followers…wondered, “What now?” Hopes dashed to pieces.
If Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was at all an intention to force the hand of the Messiah, to hurry him to bring on the kingdom of God on the earth, by Saturday the answer was final.
“No.”
Despairing, Judas surrendered his neck to a rope hung from a tree, for sin without forgiveness brings death.
Loving, Jesus willingly gave his life to the nails on another tree, for a sin-debt paid brings life.
On that Saturday, there was a vast empty echoing silence for those who didn’t yet fathom the significance.
Despair, doubt…
Have you ever hoped in the Lord and wondered at his apparent delay? Like Mary and Martha, perplexed by Jesus’ seeming nonchalance about the urgency of their brother’s illness…Lazarus was in the grave, body grown cold, all hope gone. Then, and only then, Jesus came and promised the impossible, the unthinkable–that they would yet see the manifestation of Resurrection and Life.
Sometimes, the greatest redemptions of life are birthed during the agony of delay.
The disciples waited. Watched. Maybe, even, prayed.
Silence.
Did any of them remember, in those long moments that passed, that Jesus promised he would come to them? As surely as the spring rains. As surely as the sun that rises.
He promises he will come.
Practically Speaking: Do you ever feel like you have been working so hard, maybe for years, to be free from tyranny to unhealthy eating and thinking and living? Do you wonder why God delays in lifting the turmoil from your life? Prayerfully consider–is it possible that this delay is a birthing of something greater in you than you might ever dare to imagine?
A golden, polished cross with five small diamonds in it–a gift from my parents for my 21st birthday. It was significant at the time, indicating a truce of sorts. They finally laid their weapons down against me and my stand for Christ–something that had chafed them since I was 15 years old and had declared that I now knew that Jesus had paid for my sin on the cross.
That special gift, given 27 years ago, is still a treasure. Not one to wear much–if any–jewelry save a wedding ring, on Sunday mornings, I often wear this cross around my neck. I love the way the rounded, smooth cross looks, dangling against my neck. It isn’t ostentatious, but very subtle and simple in it’s beauty.
On Monday as I greeted the Lord in the quietness of a house not yet awakened, God revealed a blind spot in my life. I have a tendency to feel uncomfortable when someone I love is hurting and I feel like I can’t do anything to make it better. Whether it is my son, exasperated with failed attempts to create the perfect English class essay or my daughter’s lament that she wishes desperately she had a different nose…or something much deeper. I have an inclination to run for the hills rather than be present to the suffering of people I love. Maybe it is a need to be in control…I am not sure yet.
As my time with the Lord continued, however, I read from Contemplating the Cross by Tricia McCary Rhodes. As I prayed through what I was reading, I heard the Holy Spirit say to my heart, “You do the same with the cross of Christ…” I considered what he meant and realized that I tend to run from the discomfort of the cross, too. Of course I have turned to the Lord and embraced the gift he has given me through the act of being on the cross–becoming sin for me so that in him, I might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). But it is as though I quickly kiss it, pat it superficially, and … run. Anything but to have to come face to face with the suffering and discomfort of God in pain–especially if the pain is because of me.
I have turned the cross of Christ, that which was the instrument of suffering and grief–and the salvation of the world–into a golden, polished, icon, thus minimizing the intensity of its horror–and…its beauty, its gravity.
As I pondered what the real cross would look like, feel like, smell like, I was aghast at the images that came to mind compared to this polished iconic symbol that I seem to prefer. I imagined seeing the roughly hewn cross, reaching my hand forward and touching it…looking closely. The blood stains–and there…bits of flesh from the scourged back…the splinters against his wounded back must have been as skewers, ripping and tearing tissue, already tender and open, spilling his blood even further as he agonized. His pain wasn’t merely physical, too…it was beyond intense as the triune God, in some way beyond my ability to fathom, was torn apart, the Father turning his back on the Son who had become sin…
I have often said that if I had to sacrifice animals in order to atone for my sin like the Israelites of old, I might have a different view of sin and be less callused to it.
The truth is, it is this image of the cross–the rough, hewn, splintered, jagged wood, blending with the mixture of blood and flesh against the precious Son of God’s back–that should be before me each Sunday and each day, rather than the tiny, polished, gold and diamonds icon. To think that I have worn my necklace with an air of pride, even while keeping Jesus at a “comfortable distance,” breaks my heart.
I am thankful that he did become sin for me. In this, I become the righteousness of God.
Did you know that God doesn’t call us to be thin? He doesn’t even call us to be fit!
He *does* call us to be HIS!
I think I am finally coming to a place of accepting what God ordains (well, maybe). What a novel approach! LOL! Instead of striving, I am beginning to lay down my tendency to chafe against his plan.
You see, before, even when releasing 100 pounds using the Thin Within approach, I wanted BODY BEAUTIFUL. I mean, if you stripped away what I was really thinking–even at my thinnest–that was what I was after. Sure, I wrote about loving the Lord with my heart, soul, mind and strength and not elevating self above Him. And I was sincere.
But I think I had this sense that “Yes, yes, I want a godly heart, AS LONG AS I GET THE PERFECT BODY, TOO!”
Well, hello? Since when has gravity NOT had an impact on any 48 year old woman who has had two babies? I mean, even if you are fit and trim, you have to fight with the force pushing downward on…er…certain things, if you get me! 🙂
Not only that, but when your less-than-youthfully-elastic skin has stre-e-e-etched around 100 more pounds…well…again…hello? LOL! Once the 100 pounds are gone, there will be wrinkles that weren’t there when the skin was stretched taught around it. Does that make sense? Things change!
And here is a new one no one ever told me about. Did you know that when a woman’s body goes through “the change”…well…it does some OTHER different things? I have never had so many dimples on my thighs! Even when I was a size 24, my legs didn’t look like golf balls, pockmarked with dimples like they do now. And here comes summer. Well, SO WHAT! 🙂 I refuse to fry by hiding behind long pants. THINGS change! Mine are strong legs and they do a lot! I will wear every dimply bit of skin proudly! I am past the age of child-bearing now (I guess) and my dimply legs are a badge of honor declaring that fact! LOL! (Sorry if this is too much information….) It is so easy to say this now. I am fickle. Resolved one day and panicked the next.
But all the time, it seems so odd the way I have a tendency to pursue something that is *elusive*…and even in the name of “obedience”…in the name of bible verses like 1 Corinthians 6:19,20. (My body is the temple of God. I am not my own, I was bought at a price…) I could manage to twist even this bible verse and make it justification for obsession with an image that the WORLD purveys! A non-dimply-skinned-thighed, perkey you-know-whatted, thin super woman! HA! It ain’t gonna happen cuz THINGS CHANGE! 🙂
Here is a news flash for me: My body IS the temple of God, but the temple was the *container* for the glory of GOD. It is physical, spiritual AND emotional. God doesn’t want me to pander after PHYSICAL FITNESS and sacrifice emotional and spiritual fitness!
And, even better: YOUR (the reader of this blog post!) body IS the temple of God…the *container* for the glory of God–no matter what you think the container *looks* like! Your container is physical, emotional *and* spiritual. Please don’t sacrifice emotional and spiritual for the sake of the world’s (and even much of the Christian Church’s) view of FITNESS!
I have to say it again!
God doesn’t call us to be THIN. He calls us to be HIS!
When I am HIS, the rest falls into place! (No pun intended!)
I am so thankful that God is leading me on this path…it is the first time EVER that I have begun to feel ok in my skin. Even when I was thin, I didn’t have that precious gift.
Things change…bodies give in to gravity. 😉 But my heart has begun to soar, defying the push toward the world…finally, I think. At least today!
I realize that this blog post title is horribly “cliche’.” But it is on my heart this morning. You see, last night at a seminar for “Creating the Most Amazing Author Website,” one over-arching theme struck me like a locomotive train. And it is true.
It is that “This isn’t about me.”
I have known that at some level, but it came home to me at a new, deeper level. This blog, the writing that I aspire to do, my involvement at the Thin Within forums, my sharing with you the transformational journey that *I* am on, isn’t really about me…Sharing it here at the blog, when I get to share with women in person, or writing about it in any form–it is about Jesus and you and about Jesus’ work in you.
None of it means anything if I don’t keep that in mind.
You come here to this blog looking for something–hope, perhaps, ideas for getting unstuck, inspiration–the reasons are endless. If I fail to keep that in mind, then I miss the opportunity that God extends to merely be a conduit through which He can pour out Himself into your life.
Your kindness to me has been so healing to me, but I have taken that and somehow twisted it. Please forgive me for that! My heart is truly that God would take anything that is true about his work in me and offer it to you as proof that he loves you. Proof that He is doing a new thing in you. I am not a “special case” in his eyes–no more special than you.
So, I want to commit afresh to offering you the only thing that matters. It is Him. You may already know this, but I want to offer it again, afresh. Right now, in THIS moment…this is a sacred moment and in it, he wants you to stop. To listen. To hear him say, “Child, I am doing a new thing in you right now…” I hope you can hear him. Stop for a second, close your eyes. Do you hear him delighting over you with singing?
Oh, how he loves YOU. I hope you can believe this and rest in this fact today.
No matter where your life has taken you–if you are struggling with health problems, if you are overweight, if you are underweight and refuse to honor your body by eating enough nourishment to sustain good health, if you are on the brink of giving up on life and on God…stop…please stop…and listen. In the stillness…there is a still small voice…and it sings over you with delight…
Most of us who land at this blog are here because of food and body issues. Most of us want to weigh less, be smaller, lose weight.
So let me ask you something…what does your heart weigh? Does the weight of your heart matter as much as what your body weighs? What if you could be lighter in body, but only at the expense of your heart–if getting smaller actually caused your heart to be burdened? Would you give up a light heart in exchange for a light body?
Certainly in our world, the focus is on our physical weight and size. We are told we have to be a certain weight for our height and we have an idea of what size we “should” be. Some of us have fixated on that number and won’t deviate from it for the world.
But what does God say to us? I think he asks me, even now…”Heidi, what does your heart weigh? Is it heavy because you are chasing after things I have never led you to chase after? Is it burdened because you refuse to release cares and concerns to me?”
This is the real “weight” issue that God cares about. Sure he wants us to be as physically healthy as we can be, but he cares the most about our hearts. If he were to “weigh” our hearts on a scale, what would the result be?
Should we consider “losing weight” in our heart? What if we were to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness? He says that we need not to worry about what we EAT or drink or what we will wear (including the size!). Instead, as we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, all these things will be added to us as well.
Practically speaking: What can you do to have a lighter heart? A heart that isn’t quite so burdened? How might this affect your eating and body issues?
“I am tired of my quiet times being all about what I eat or don’t eat.”
Do you feel like you want something different to be the focus of your time with God?
I totally understand!
Here is a potentially important distinction for us to draw.
My time with Jesus is to direct the focus of my eating.
vs.
My eating is to direct the focus of my time with Jesus.
Does the distinction make sense? It is really huge to me.
When I “blow it” with my eating or views of myself, I confess and move on. God doesn’t want me to sit quietly with him beating myself up with books and workbooks and verses and prayers all focusing on food and getting this right and that right…and call it my “quiet” time. When I do this, it is like I bring my sin, now confessed and forgiven, into my sacred time spent focusing on…well…it is supposed to be time spent focusing on Jesus! Not only that, but it is as if I haven’t believed him–that he has cleansed me of ALL unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Yet, instead, I make it be about my mess ups, my food, my need to “fix.” I wallow in condemnation, which is so contrary to what the Word says! (See Romans 8:1)
What if we were to reverse this? What if we were to take time each day with the Lord (and in the rhythms of the day, too…in the quiet moments waiting at traffic signals, or when in the shower, whenever else we can), rich opportunities to focus on his sufficiency? What if we were to worship Him in those times? What if we were to toss out the food/body/issue related bible studies for a month and do an experiment? Let’s just sit at his feet and focus on getting to know HIM more. I mean, REALLY get to know Him more. What is He like? What does He do now? How does Jesus reveal Him to us? Who is the Holy Spirit and how does He affect me now?
And what if we took the things He shows us about himself in our times with Him into our eating? Whether we eat or drink–whatever we do–we can glorify God, so it stands to reason we can take the things we know, learn, are reminded of from those sacred moments with still hearts before Him and go into the eating experience changed, transformed, ready to allow Him to yet reveal more to us.
Does this make sense to anyone?
It is a subtle, but profound difference.
If I can make my eating/view of my size and my body be about what I learn in my times alone with Jesus instead of make my times alone with Jesus be about my eating–what kind of changes might occur in my life over all?
