Balance Pose

The life out of balance is a symptom. There's weakness and overwork and strain somewhere that you can't beat into shape, it needs to be restored.

The other night I was at a yoga class.

 I was rocking it, 

then came the balance poses.

All those little stabilizing muscles were worn out and I was swaying like a reed in the wind.

So, what should we do when our lives are out of whack and we can't hold it together?

First, we need to stop.  Halt.  Freeze. Desist. If I'm completely out of control, this is the hardest thing to do, but it is always the first step.  There is no course correcting when I'm at the end of my rope because there is no room to maneuver at the end of a rope!


Second, we listen.  Once we are at a full stop, then we start to listen for God's voice.  This doesn't mean we just wait for Him to hit us on the head with some heavenly message.  We ask Him to speak.  He waits for us to ask for bread.  It's part of the relationship, the asking.

Please.  Give me ears to hear.

Next, we receive His healing willingly and without putting any parameters on what we will and will not accept from Him.

I will take what You give me.

 This is often the hardest thing for me because too often I think that I'm going to be punished.  So I remind myself
  
Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

God is our healer.  We take to Him our hurts and ask for help.  Frustration (really another word for anger) comes when we do not take our hurts to the Father.  We try to fix our wounds on our own and it never works.

Please, heal me.

God has used the most unlikely things to heal me.  Why?  I think because I ask Him to.  Because I ask Him to come into my life and to make it holy.  Little by little, spreading through the day until my whole life is spent walking with Him. 

And what about the yucky places?

Those icky sticky sin type places in my life?

I can't ask God to come there?

Yes.  You can.  That's exactly what I'm saying.  You invite Him into your messed up, rotten life and He goes around making it beautiful.  Fixing stuff.  Organizing things.  Getting rid of the junk.  Scrubbing that nasty spot in the corner that you've been hiding with furniture.  And when you see how He's doing it, you want to participate.  You want to go around making things just a little prettier, a little more beautiful, a little more wholesome.

So, what happens when you make a mess of things, again?  Easy. You go to Him again.  And once you've started doing it, you don't want to stop, because you see how much better your life is looking on the inside.   Your heart starts to clear up.  Your limp starts to go away.  That gash in your arm isn't gangrene anymore.  The Doctor is looking after you and soon you'll be on your feet again, good as new.

Why Motherhood is About Slowing Down

There are some things in life that I do quickly.  A desperate load of laundry on the 27 minute cycle.  Unloading the dishwasher in under 4 minutes.   From bed to car in under 10 minutes.

But there is an underlying rythym in my life and it is a slow as an old grandfather clock.  

Steady.

And I think of the tortiose and take a deep breath and I suddenly do amazing things like-

Trust God to give me the energy I need to clean the house up later, because now my little boy wants to lay in bed and read Frog and Toad.  

Go to the soccer match happening on the pitch in the backyard. My box seat is waiting. Popcorn included. 

Pick up color crayons and a scrap of paper because one sad little girl needs to get a note from her Mama and another busy girl needs my love written down for her, too. 

Confess my unkindness and impatience to my little guy. His angels always behold the face of the Father, so who better to pray forgiveness over his Mama?

These are the moments that are heaven on earth.  When the difference between here and there isn't any difference at all.

Take Elizabeth Barrett Browning and put her in a board book and you come up with lines such as these

"How do I love you?  

Let me count the ways.

I love you on your very best and very worst of days.

I love to hear you singing. 

I love to see you smile.

I love the way you take each day in your own unhurried style."

This pace is slow and sometimes the beat is hard to find under the sound of my own selfish frustrations.

So we ask, please Lord, help us to find you.  Be with us.  Fix us and bind us together.  Let Your kingdom come. Amen.  And then we watch it happen right in front of us.