Engage your Core Some More

Zip it up. Engage your core. However you say it in pilates, those interior muscles which are hidden from view need to be tensing and strengthening so they can take the stress.

Tricky. Very tricky.

I am struggling to achieve some success in this elusive form of exercise, because I believe that if I can strengthen that inner core, I will be much better equipped to withstand any twists or jerks or turns which might otherwise result in slipped disks or other muscular injuries, especially to the back.

The back is so central to every move we make, and even to our resting positions. I have learned painfully over this last year how integral it is to every move I make, and every resting posture I choose. If the back is sore, pretty much everything hurts.

Spiritually I am also trying to engage my core. Exercising my faith through reading the Bible, praying, reading spiritual books and discussing them with friends. Identifying and recognising what my core values are as a Christian. Very tricky as well. Hard to see progress, just like with pilates. But also just like with pilates, if I don’t have a strong spiritual core I am in danger of serious injury. Emotional stress may result in spiritual pulled muscles or slipped disks.

Mentally I am trying to engage my core, by embarking on learning a new language. To learn Russian, I first need to learn a new alphabet, so I am still at that basic, infant position, trying hard to master the strange symbols and make the foreign guttural sounds. Keeping the brain active and challenged and learning new things is important, we are told, for future mental agility.

So, 2015 is the year of engagement of my core. Cores. Only by the grace of God can I strengthen all those muscles – physical, spiritual, and mental, but that is my goal. 

Watch this space...

Small Potatoes

I sit in my prayer alcove and pour out my heart to the God I love. Some of the things on my heart seem mammoth; some seem intransigent, never improving despite the desperation in my voice and heart; some just niggle and some are probably not worth mentioning. 

Then I look down at the globe, where I have marked black spots for particular prayer and the comparison couldn’t be more stark. When God has in his sight children orphaned from ebola, refugees freezing on the heights in Syria, prisoners awaiting beheadings by fanatics in Iraq, broken-hearted people bereaved and lonely, people in pain, people in distress ... my bag of burdens are small potatoes. Infinitely small by comparison.

And yet Jesus reassures his followers that God knows the number of hairs on our heads. He cares for every bird and living creature. He invites us to ‘come to me, and I will give you rest’. 

His perspective encompasses the grandiose and the infinitesimally small. The state of the world and the state of Michele. And he cares for all. In his awesome might and power he can be involved on the macro and the micro levels, bringing hope and relief and comfort and peace to all.

I don’t want to inflate my worries but neither do I want to diminish them. Jesus invites us to lay our burdens at his feet, and that restores our perspective. As we release our grip on our anxieties – which can seem irresponsible in some ways – we gain a glimpse of the divine perspective and we are filled with peace as we trust that he has heard our cries and is responding. 

Not every prayer is answered exactly as we want it nor as instantly as we would like, but we can trust that God is not ignoring them and to him, none of them are small potatoes.

Stormy Weather

Stormy weather ... the worst has passed, though still the winds blow. The sun is out, yet still the winds blow. The sky is blue, yes, but still the winds blow.

Life is like that. Someone close to me has had an operation, desperate for it to be the answer to the pain. The operation has passed, the worst is over, but still the pain persists. 

Life is like that. A loved one dies, the agony of watching them fade away and take their final breaths is over, but the grief ensues. 

Life is like that. A relationship hits crisis point, it breaks and paths diverge, but the loneliness hits like a wall of water.

Life is like that.

Through it all, Jesus never leaves us. He is not a fair-weather friend but a steadfast lover. When there is nothing else to be said, he stands with us and weeps, sharing our grief, bearing our pain if we will let him.

It is January, the month of stormy weather. Spring is coming. It is just around the corner. Even now, the bulbs are breaking through the frozen earth. How do they do that? How do they have the strength in their flimsy stalks to penetrate rock-solid dirt? 

That, perhaps, is the subject of another day’s blog.

Be refreshed

I lift my eyes to the hills, the psalmist writes. Looking up at the hills or the mountains changes my perspective. The tendency is to look down, to focus in on my own footsteps through each day, and these become all important and all consuming. When I look up, and see the vista God has arranged, layers of responsibility are shed as I recognise my own insignificance and rejoice in the Big Picture.

With the world in the mess it is just now, threats and violence commonplace, it is easy to keep my head down and my focus on such things. When I lift my eyes to the hills, to the heavens – when I shift my gaze from the chaos to the peace of God, my soul is restored and refreshed. 

I don’t get it. The world is full of violence and misery, of injustice and pain, and yet we have a great God, a loving God who created a beautiful world and who is all powerful. There is a paradox which I accept: a loving God, all powerful, who does not fix the misery but allows it to continue. I explain it by recognising that this loving God has granted us free will, so that we will choose to love him and not love him out of duress. Loving him brings with it the concomitants of peace and joy and hope, so what’s not to love? 

Perversely, rebellion tempts us at every turn and with rebellion come disharmony and mayhem. So today, I lift my eyes to the hills and pause, breathing slowly and rhythmically, focusing on the God who loves us so much that he died for us. Such love. 

May you take time to pause today when things overwhelm, when temptations rise, when despair beckons. Lift your eyes and adjust your perspective. And be refreshed.

Weather Windows

The weather really does a number on my windows. 

My mother used to say she would wait until after the rainy season to wash the outsides of the windows because otherwise the first drops of rain negated all the effort.

The trouble with living in Scotland is that the weather is year-round, so while I sometimes hear my mom’s voice reassuring me that it’s ok to wait until better weather to wash the windows, I can’t actually see out of them very clearly just now.

The sun is out this afternoon so I may just steel myself to wrap up warm and get out there, but we’ll see... 

Streaks and smudges tend to concentrate my vision – on the streaks and smudges. Instead of seeing through the glass to the views and the beauties outside, my eyes focus in on the dirty windows. 

Life can be like that. I can be so aware of my own failings or those of others that I fail to see the beauty of the gift that life is. Seeing failings makes me sigh and feel downhearted; Jesus invites me to bring my failings to him and he will wipe them away, wash the window clean, and enable me to regain an undistorted view of life as God intends it to be. 

Like Scottish weather, my own nature keeps on throwing up those smudges and streaks on the window of life, so I can’t wait until the sinful season passes, because it won’t. I need to bring my smudges to Jesus every day so he can wipe the glass clean and I can carry on living the abundant life which he wants me to live. 

He is the great divine window-washer; hope it’s not too irreverent to say it would be nice if there were a great practical window-washer down here who would pop in every so often to clean my windows!!