Growing New Muscles

New Years resolutions often bring a new workout plan. Goals for a new and lean body....my plans went deeper than that this year. I have watched my own body change after having three babies, and creep dangerously close to the forty year mark. And with those changes have come aches and pains and creaking joints in my body that are only a result of a sedentary lifestyle.

Earlier this year, I went for the major cardiovascular workout....cardio kickboxing. It was lots of fun, and I certainly saw some changes in my body....although none worth the insane amounts of energy I was putting into the workouts. I was watching my diet, working out at least five days a week, and still....only minor body changes.

Discouragement was setting in. Then I ordered a new program. By the same creator of the cardio program I had done, but this one was a super intense, 3 month phase, strength and weight training program, based on the solid fact that "muscle burns fat".

I scraped all my money together, bought the program and some weights, figured out the eating plan that came with the program....and dove in! I just finished my first week....and OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! I moaned in bed this morning as I tried to roll over and all the muscles in my aching rear end (from all the weight laden lunges) screamed at me! Every day has been that way, my body fighting against the pain....and loving it at the same time.

Chalene Johnson, the creator of this workout program, often says, while we are working with gritted teeth to push up one, painfully slow repetition of weight...."Your body LOVES muscle!" It is true....my back pain is gone this week, I feel stronger and taller, and amazingly in just a few short days, I am seeing muscle tone!

And as I rolled out of bed this morning...I pondered what in interesting irony that the very thing that seems like it is sooooo hard, that wants to defeat us, that would be so easy to put down and escape from....is the very thing that makes us stronger. This year of refinement and struggle in our family has shown me that. People have known it for ages...."that which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." Yet somehow, this morning, it kind of sunk in to my soul on a very tangible level...as my aching body reminded me that I am not dead, but very much alive....and stronger.

Oftentimes, the refinement comes in waves. Not just one difficulty, but a whole plate of things that seem overwhelming and crushing. Kind of like adding metal weights onto my dumbells....on purpose. I smile as I think I can't lift anymore, and Chalene says, "go heavy or go home baby!". And so not to be outdone, I add another weight....making the reps just that much more difficult.

Chuckling this morning, I look back over the year, and even still a little now....and see the hand of God, gently and deliberately adding another "weight" to my life. To my already struggling life, weighted with pain or grief, or struggle....He says....how about just a little more?

And yet, as I am beginning to understand my physical body and the way that extra little weight, and the super slow repetitions tear down the muscle and cause it to rebuild stronger, I can see that the little "extra" situations in my already difficult struggles, are what make all the difference in the spiritual process for my soul as well.

Sure you can lift lighter weights, and do tons of repetitions....but the really amazing results come from heavy, heavy weights and fewer, painfully slow repetitions. And contrary to popular belief...it doesn't cause abnormal bulking up. It creates, lean and beautiful muscle and physique.

And so in the Spirit, I wonder if God doesn't do the same work in us. Sure He could give us a few little struggles here and there, and keep them going and going and going. But the truth is He knows that is ineffective. And so He pours it on instead, one after another, after another, until we think we are going to die under the strain. We even "weep for the night", but indeed JOY comes in the morning!

As Christians, we have learned to rebuke the "attack" from the Evil One. That somehow anything bad that happens to us can't be from God. But I truly am seeing for myself that it is a matter of perspective. Just as I look down at my ugly, metal dumbells...they represent pain and anguish for me. Nothing in me WANTS to pick them up and cause the pain and ache in my own body, but I do it for what is on the other side of the pain.

I could "rebuke" them and put them aside, choose a different path....of ease and comfort. But sadly that path, that choice leaves me about 20 pounds overweight, flabby and miserable. Comfortable to be sure....but miserable in the end.

And so I welcome a new morning of weights and painful lifting, because I know that in three months when the last phase is completed, I will be stronger, taller, more confident, and so much closer to the "me" that I was created to be.

I have been in about nine months of intense personal fire and refinement...and yet today, I am not in agony over it. I can see that in walking through it, and embracing it....in enduring the pain and letting it do it's work in me....I am changed.

I only wish we could take Spiritual "before and after" pictures as easily as we can physical ones. To SHOW the change, to SEE the inner transformation.

And even though this season of refinement feels like it might be drawing to a close for now, I know that it is only a season...and that heat will return. I smile a little, not because I look forward to more refinement....but for the image of God in me that comes on the other side of those fires.

I willingly submit.

He Keeps the Key

"Is there some problem in your life to solve,
Some passage seeming full of mystery?
God knows, who brings the hidden things to light.
He keeps the key.



Is there some door closed by the Father's hand
Which widely opened you had hoped to see?
Trust God and wait - for when He shuts the door
He keeps the key.



Is there some earnest prayer unanswered yet,
Or answered NOT as you had thought 'twould be?
God will make clear His purpose by and by.
He keeps the key



Have patience with your God, your patient God,
All wise, all knowing, no long lingerer He,
And the door of all your future life
He keeps the key.



Unfailing comfort, sweet and blessed rest,
To know of EVERY door He keeps the key.
That He at last when just HE sees is best,
Will give it THEE.


Anonymous

Leaving It All Behind

We strive, we toil in this life...to attain, to get more, have more...really just to be more. We work to get a better education, so that we can get the best paying jobs. We work hard at careers day in and day out, waiting and hoping for promotions and recognition for our hard work. Often this toiling comes at great, great sacrifice of the really important things...our families, our children, our joy, indeed our very lives.

Somewhere we look up and see that we are missing the very lives we had hoped to achieve. Maybe the outer trappings are there....the big house, the nice cars, a hefty retirement, all the lights, bells and whistles on the latest and greatest "toys" the world can offer us. But at what price? Jim Rohn tells us that there is always a price for every goal that we set. We simply have to ask is it worth paying? Sometimes, I think we look up and realize we've paid a terrible price, and the goal was not worth it.

And so as 2008 was drawing to a close...I embarked on a 40 day intensive prayer journey. The joy had gone out of our family. Our eyes were empty and had lost their sparkle. Our laughter had slowly disappeared. We had lost our daddy to the daily cycle of working to live and living to work. He was depressed, angry and hurting. A numbness to life had replaced his vitality and an apathy had lodged in our home.

My prayers focused on him...and initially were for his health, his walk with the Lord, his job, his boss, etcetera, etcetera. Then about 2 weeks into my journey, I began to see the tiniest flickers of something in him...to say it was a spark would be to overstate the situation...really it was a "consciousness". Like when someone has been unconscious, and they "come to". That was all. But it was enough that it sparked my desire to remember the scripture..."the effectual, fervent (italics mine) prayers of a righteous man availeth much." What if my fervency created more effectiveness? I began to dig deeper, and press in.

The days turned into weeks, and some changes were evident....but not truly powerful ones. I was okay with that. My husband was beginning to emerge...and maybe that was all God wanted to do. So I continued on, realizing that maybe earth shattering change may not be what God desired....just seeds sown. So I rested in that and continued to pray.

Then came the 39th day....which I laughingly call the "eleventh hour". It started out like any other day, and so when my early bird Emily awoke, I took her and we went grocery shopping while daddy and the other kids slept. He did not have to leave for work until a little later and so we kind of made a day of it. When we arrived home, our dear daddy was still in bed talking on the phone. Not completely unusual for his strange work schedule....I didn't really give it a second thought. He came out a moment later, having finished the conversation on the phone....and wrapped me in his arms and began to kiss my forehead. Now this was a little unusual, and my curiosity began to wonder what was up.

What unfolded before me was miraculous and surreal. He simply said, "I'm done Kim. I am done living like this, I am done feeling like this, I am done exchanging my joy and my life, even my family for some dream that isn't really even mine! I don't want any of it! I only want laughter, and joy and peace with you and my children. That's all." Then he said with every bit of peace and joy...absolute calmness in his voice, "I want to move to Hawaii."

I had experienced a piece of what he was desiring earlier in the year when my dear friend flew me to the Big Island of Hawaii to visit her in the Spring. What had started out as a simple vacation took on a spiritual significance that had left me changed forever. Experiencing God on a level that took him out of all of my "churchy" boxes, and let him fully be the magnificent creator of a majestic universe, and to realize he was simultaneously the lover of my soul! To laugh out loud, to play hard, to stand in a waterfall and let the water drench my thirsty soul! John had watched it all from the outside...but only now, nine months later... had he said "enough".

And so we are walking away, and leaving it all behind. The striving, the toiling, ....the emptiness and the lifelessness. Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life and have it to the fullest!" We've only caught a glimpse of what "fullest" means, but it was enough of a glimpse to know that we are starving for it, and our current path certainly does not lead to it.

So far in these few days since we have decided to move...I have been overcome a few times with anxiety of the what it truly means to "leave it all behind". There have been very sad and difficult closures on relationships that I had held dear. And while the pain at times has been almost unbearable, I realize that those heart strings were cut for such a time as this. So I exhale, and let go.

Even this morning I woke up with heart palpitations and unable to catch my breath...at the prospect of selling ALL of our stuff! Sixteen years of marriage, my whole existence has been to create a beautiful home. And we will literally leave with hardly anything. How deep this American dream runs! Even when you think none of it matters and you think you could "walk away" from it all....until you actually have someone showing up to pick up all of your things...you will never know. I never knew.

But all of life is a process. And today, I look back and see the work of Simplicity that the Lord has led me down for the past ten years. A constant and consistent revealing to my heart of what was important and laying down of that which was not. Downscaling, downsizing my life...again and again. And learning to enjoy the little, near meaningless things in life...and to come face to face with the realization that they are really the ONLY MEANINGFUL things that there are.

And so as an eagle waits and waits perched patiently at the edge of his nest...my Father has brought me there, again and again, reminding me that I am not of this world and it's ways, and I was never intended to make my home in this nest. For he created me for the high places, and to get there I must wait for the wind of his Spirit and then step out into the unknown .....and soar. For eagles do not flap and strive to fly....they simply wait....and wait...and when the wind comes, they spread their wings and mount up into the highest of places carried only by the wind.

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles..." Isaiah 40:31

Moving Along Slowly

A day behind....I read yesterday's reading of "Streams in the Desert" by L.B. Cowman. I chuckled....because in years past, I have delved into the New Year with a flurry of goal setting, and lists of new resolutions, and game plans for success.

This year has been different. I have struggled a little this year...I realized over and over where I fall so terribly short. All of my best laid plans often fall as rubble around my feet. All my best inspirations become soapboxes that somehow hurt and intimidate rather than inspire.

No....this year, as much as I want to lay out all my fitness goals, my health goals, my relationship goals, my home school goals, my spiritual goals.....etc etc....I am painfully aware today that I am not the commander of my own journey. Personal development gurus would argue differently, but my life experience has shown that "I am not my own" and my journey is not my own. I am most definitely on a path, and a long and wonderfully arduous journey...to the "High Places" but it is not of my own making.

As I realized I was a day behind in "Streams in the Desert", the quiet whisper of my Father spoke to my heart saying, "My sweet child, you are not behind, you are right where you should be." He looks down as a loving parent, takes my small trembling hand...and says to me,"I will move along slowly...since you have never been this way before." (Joshua 3:4)

And so it is with humility in my own journey that I offer in it's entirety the entry for January 3, taken directly from "Streams in the Desert" in hopes that just in case you are like me, and you simply cannot muster up exciting goals and plans for the coming year....knowing that you are powerless to achieve them on your own....I offer this gentle reminder that you are "just where you should be"....and we are all being led on this journey...by a loving and patient Father...who knows that we are but dust.

January 3

I (will) move along slowly at the pace of the droves before me and that of the children.

(Genesis 33:14)

What a beautiful picture of Jacob's thoughtfulness for the cattle and the children! He would not allow them to be driven too hard for even one day. He would not lead them at a pace equal to what a strong man like Esau could keep or expected them to keep, but only one as fast as they were able to endure. He knew exactly how far they could go in a a day, and he made that his only consideration in planning their travel. He had taken the same wilderness journey years before and knew from personal experience its roughness, heat and distance. And so he said, "I (will) move along slowly." "Since you have never been this way before" (Josh.3:4)

We "have never been this way before," but the Lord Jesus has. It is all untraveled and unknown ground to us, but He knows it all through personal experience. He knows the steep places that take our breath away, the rocky paths that make our feet ache, the hot and shadeless stretches that bring us to exhaustion, and the rushing rivers that we have to cross - Jesus has gone through it all before us. As John 4:6 shows, "Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down." He was battered by every possible torrent, but all the flood waters coming against Him never quenched His love. Jesus was made a perfect leader by the things he suffered. He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust"(Psalm 103:14). Think of that when you are tempted to question the gentleness of His leading. He remembers all the time and will never make you take even one step beyond what your feet are able to endure. Never mind if you think you are unable to take another step, for either He will strengthen you to make you able, or He will call a sudden halt, and you will not have to take it at all. Frances Ridley Havergal

In "pastures green"? Not always; sometimes He

Who knowest best, in kindness leadeth me

In weary ways, where heavy shadows be.

So,whether on the hilltops high and fair

I dwell, or in the sunless valleys, where

The shadows lie, what matter? He is there

Barry

The End and the Beginning

New Beginnings

What may be perceived as the end of something, is the start of something new in your life.

What you call a beginning is often the end.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where you start from.

Author Unknown

Photo: Broce Ranch, Evergreen CO...my favorite home.

Forgetting What Lies Behind...

The past year has been a tumultuous one for me....filled with unspeakable joy, but also much sadness, pain and hurt as I am sure so many of those reading these pages have also experienced in their own lives.

Months and months of family issues, hurts, and mud slinging...had left me bruised, battered and exhausted beyond anything I could have imagined.

As the year began to draw to a close, I realized that all those months spent in tears and soul searching, in refinement from the Father's Hand, had been very needed and very transforming.

They continue. But the overwhelming weight of it all was beginning to suffocate me. To steal my very life and by definition...those around me. I looked up and realized that I was letting pain from the past....steal, kill and destroy my joy in the future. My tomorrows didn't hold promise....my days were beginning to melt into each other. I was drowning in the swirl of it all.

And in the final days of 2008, as the family arrows continued to fly, and mud was still being flung....I took a deep breath. A realization slowly dawned. I can step out of this. I MUST step out of this. And so began a few days of intense prayer, and relinquishment...letting the tears flow and letting all that was deep inside my soul...every wrong, every hurt (inflicted by me and to me), every abuse, every memory....flow out onto paper. I knew that it would not, could not ever be sent to anyone...for the damage it would inflict would be lethal.

Instead I simply wept. And breathed. I thought of the movie that is called "Waiting to Exhale"....that is how I have felt for all these months. In fact, I have felt this for many, many years. And the Spirit whispered to my soul...."EXHALE my beloved, and I will fill you with the breath of myself....and you shall breathe life again."

I took an unusually deep breath.....held it for a second...focused my soul on all the pain that it represented....and I let out a long, slow, deep exhale until their was no breath left in my body. Then....oh, then.....I took in the most gloriously deep breath! It was the breathing in of life, joy, and utter peace, and it filled my lungs to their fullest capacity!

And so as we made plans for our New Year's Eve celebration this year....I realized that this year was different than any other. There would be no baby sitter this year. There would be no "party" with friends....this year was to be ended with ceremony and intention.

After a wonderful day of family activity... laughing, chattering, delighting in each others presence, we journeyed out to the deserted lake....in the freezing cold night. We each had purchased a balloon...and had discussed at length what that balloon was to represent.

It was to represent those things that we have clung to. Those things that we have stuffed deep within us, bitterness, hurt, anger...all those things that have kept us from fully being inhabited by the Prince of Peace.....

We each chose a color to represent our pain. Mine was black...for I could think of no other color that would represent the ugly, vile and putrid things that had flowed onto my 13 page letter the day before....and attached to it...was a blood red string....representing the very blood of the One who bore my pain.

We prayed over each balloon....and then we each took a moment...and put our lips to our balloon....breathing into the balloon what we most wanted to release...to be free of. And closing our eyes, we looked up into the night....the lake shimmering below...the eternal expanse of the universe laid out before us....and we LET GO!

Tears began to fill my eyes and flow down my face! I began to tremble at the magnitude of it! And I watched as my "pain" flew farther and farther from me....so far in fact, that in just moments it was but a speck in the sky....and then it was absorbed into the glittering sky.

Absorbed by the Creator of it all! Gone forever....never to descend upon me again!

I smiled...my kids clapped joyfully!! Joy had returned to this family. Peace had taken the place of Pain....and we had closed the chapter on 2008 with finality! We celebrated with loud, wonderful fireworks and shouts of unbridled joy!

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ...I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me....

Forgetting what lies behind (italics added), and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Phillipians 3:7-14

New Beginnings

"Behold I will make ALL things new..." Jesus

In the depths of the winter...all is quiet. All is dormant...all is seemingly dead. We speak almost in hushed tones as we journey through it, knowing.

What is it that is happening in under the drifts of snow, and the freezing temperatures? All outward show of life is gone... Some of us are in the winters of our lives. All the green and vibrant life of Spring and Summer have passed away, we are left with deep browns and grays, chilly winds, and heavy weight of snow.

Will we survive it we ask? Will Spring truly come again?....We doubt, we wonder...we anguish.

And yet there is beauty in the dying, because we know...we know in the depths of our being that the dying is only the prerequisite to living! Oh how I ache to live!

As these last days of 2008 draw to a close, I am tucking away all that these months have held. The lessons, the pain, the refinement, the betrayals. I am forever changed by it all. I wouldn't change any of the struggle that my family has endured this year...because I know that in the death to so many things...life is waiting to spring up from somewhere beyond it. I tenderly reminisce over the joys, the laughter, the memories of so many precious and wonderful gifts woven graciously throughout the pain. What blessing!

I ponder the whole advent season that we have just finished...glorious yes. But I know that God intentionally obscured His "coming"....and He purposed it to be very small and almost hidden...for it wasn't the coming, or the birth that He desires us to lay hold of. He came not in pomp and circumstance to show His glory and be hailed as deliverer. Instead, He came....to die. And the glorious, and truly significant part that He beckons us to remember is that He did not evade death....He defeated death.

He went there. He endured the shame and pain of being betrayed by those who professed loudly and wholly their love for him. It's why he came. He walked through an unfair and circus of a trial...resulting in horrible mockery and merciless beating. It's why He came.

Finally, He willingly and knowingly submitted to agonizing and final death on a cross meant for a criminal. It's why He came.

Those who professed their love so ardently, were no where to be found. They had betrayed Him and hung Him out to dry. The only ones who faithfully stayed the course with Him...were His dear mother and a couple of His truest and most intimate friends. That's all. No throng of supporters, no family, no other "friends".... No, those "loved ones" had fed Him to the wolves. They participated in his crucifixion. But then again, it's why He came.

And as the darkness of the cave enveloped His body, as the depths of His "winter" fully settled over him... the sting was gone. Death had occurred...as agonizing, and unfair, and tormenting as it was....it was why He came. But the sting of death itself was gone.

He came to die. And yet.....He came, so that He could be resurrected out of death. And while it was a necessary part...the death was only a means to an end.

Hope springs up in my heart! The death that has been so agonizing in my heart, is only serving another purpose. It is ONLY a means to an end.

The end is Life.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus, "I came that you might have life and have it to the fullest."

Could it be that fullness is what awaits this dark, cold, lifeless winter?

I feel it. My soul trembles at the realization.

And so I pack away these last remnants of 2008, and I let them have their death.

It is indeed the season of new beginnings...not because I have resolved it to be so. No amount of goal setting or resolutions will achieve what my soul longs for.

But the Giver of Life does. And He does it well.

Thankfully, He doesn't "recycle" or "reinvent" the old....sprucing it up and doing a heavenly patch job on our lives.

No ......the death happens, the absolute end is necessary.

Then from the whispers of my very Spirit....come his words,

"Behold I make all things NEW"!

I wait, and I know.....these last days of winter are lingering....but my soul knows, and it beckons me...

"Be still....and KNOW."