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Now go do something about it.

Tonight was the last night of Holy Yoga training, which feels so crazy. It’s been a short and long nine weeks. I’ve read and meditated and stretched and journaled more than I have in years, and it still doesn’t feel like enough. But that’s okay. This is just the beginning of the journey. I didn’t sign on to yoga instructor training because I knew it all or had it all together. I didn’t even sign on in order to learn how to teach yoga. I signed on to learn more about the Lord and myself. I signed on to learn more about my body and heart, and about taking care of others’ bodies and hearts.

Anyway, tonight was the last online class before our retreat, and the instructor sure didn’t let us off of the hook. Even though there are always more than forty people on the call, the instructors always expect us to engage. Tonight was no different. We were asked to share what we’ve been learning over the last week through our personal practice and our Scripture study.

Although I’m not shy about sharing and I’m comfortable with technology and I sure enjoy a good discourse, conference calls make me so stinkin’ nervous. The delays, the silence, the awkward interruptions when three people speak at once. It all makes me sweat. I’ve talked maybe once or twice during this training, but I typically just stay quiet and take notes throughout the evening. But this isn’t a story about me speaking up; it is a story about the Holy Spirit speaking up.

As the regulars (you know, the few solid students willing to share or give feedback to keep things moving) began to speak up and participate tonight, the instructor took a new approach with our nearly-graduated class.

How would you incorporate that into a class?

It was very practical, encouraging feedback. But even as the words came out of her mouth, I felt convicted in the most beautiful of ways. The familiar whisper, the nudging of the Spirit. The part of the Trinity who sees the good work Jesus has done in me and longs for me to share it with my world. Even if it’s not complete. Even if it feels like it isn’t enough.

My little children, don’t just talk about love as an idea or a theory. Make it your true way of life, and live in the pattern of gracious love. There is a sure way for us to know that we belong to the truth. Even though our inner thoughts may condemn us with storms of guilt and constant reminders of our failures, we can know in our hearts that in His presence God Himself is greater than any accusation. He knows all things. 1 John 3:18-20, The Voice

He’s given us an easy yoke, a light burden. He’s given us good news. He’s blessed his kids with gifting and anointing, platform and resources. When He works on us, He does it for His glory and our good… and then the good of others. There’s one sure-fire way to know that we belong to the Truth, and that is by living out the abundant life we’ve been given.

As a daughter of the Most High, I’m invited to victorious living in just a few simple steps. It’s as simple as brushing off the enemy’s accusations that I am not enough. I don’t answer to him, and I sure as hell don’t belong to him. It’s as simple as putting on the armor as my Father instructs me, because I know his voice to be true and trustworthy. I can attest that his presence is the gift. It’s as simple as going out into my world and quite literally loving people’s faces off (thanks Jess).

Here’s what I heard from the Lord tonight… I love you. I paid for you. You’re enough because I say so. Now go do something about it.

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health & wellness life lately

What dying feels like.

I know what it looks like. Skin goes gray, blue sometimes, and people sleep a lot. They stop eating and talking. Family paces and medicates and dotes and laughs nervously in the corner. Sometimes there’s singing, and there’s almost always crying. I find myself answering the same questions over and over. No, they won’t starve to death. Our bodies know to stop taking food in once we can’t do anything with it. Yes, they can hear you. Right up until the very end, they can hear your voice. It cuts through the fog. No, I don’t know how long they have. I’ve gotten pretty good, where I can usually estimate a matter of days or weeks. But only God has our days numbered.

But I don’t know what dying feels like. And this week, the day after my thirtieth birthday, I got the rare chance to sit with a woman who was still alert and oriented enough to tell me. Most of the time, during the final phase, folks are really sleepy and incoherent. It’s like a very peaceful, not-scary coma. But this lady, man, she’s tough. She’s a retired nurse and a no-nonsense wife and mother and I can’t help but see glimpses of myself in her, down the road.

When I saw her last week, she was laughing and talking and walking around her house – slowly, gingerly, but moving nonetheless. I found a different woman in bed on Monday. She was gray in color and her speech was slurred. But she recognized me immediately and waved me over. “Get your butt in here,” she whispered. “I want to tell you about the colors.” I looked at her husband and he just smiled. I sat down and grabbed her hand, resting my chin on her hospital bed side rail as she began to take me on a journey to a thin place between heaven and earth. Quite honestly, she herself was a thin place, with one foot there and one foot here.

She saw people who died twenty years ago, and they looked happy. She reported that they all had full heads of thick, luscious hair. She saw the people who were actually in the room, too, like me and her family, and she could switch back and forth easily. The colors and sounds were vibrant, she said, peaceful even. She heard a rumbling sound and saw flashes of lightning sporadically. She wasn’t scared. This was the beginning of the end, she said. “I’m dying, right?” I nodded. I asked her if it scared her. She smiled and closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m good. This is good.”

And then I rubbed her feet with essential oils and she asked me to pray for her, two things I’ve never done with a patient. Tears rolled down our cheeks as she thanked God for me and I for her. Because in that moment, I touched heaven and it touched me back.

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health & wellness life lately politics & leadership

I just lay there and wept.

I finally got back in the gym this week, after a few months of scheduling issues and what felt like a whole lot of excuses. It was my first public yoga class after starting instructor training too, so I was particularly interested to see how I felt about it. I didn’t even make it onto my mat before the tears came, so I just gave in. I just lay there and wept.

I wept for the Lord’s goodness and favor. I wept for my death arrested. I wept for the women in my city forced selling their bodies that night, even on Human Trafficking Awareness Day. I wept for my kids, that they might one day experience the Love washing over me in that moment. I wept for my country, for my President preparing to address us for his last State of the Union. I wept for the mamas in boats on the Mediterranean Sea, clinging to babies and praying to get to freedom. I wept for the mamas of color right here in my state, clinging to babies and praying to get to freedom. I wept for the revival I’d seen in my marriage over the last year, revival that spurred me to be in that yoga class that night. I wept for the women of the Influence Network, that they might fully realize the power of the gospel in their lives. I wept for His faithfulness.

And if that’s what I have to look forward to every time I take off my shoes and step onto my yoga mat, Jesus and I are going to have quite the adventure.

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health & wellness life lately

Reaching for comfort in 2016.

I plan on it this year. Reaching for comfort is actually a New Year’s resolution, of sorts. Notice I’m not saying chasing after comfort. I’m not talking about indulging. I’m talking about acknowledging what’s already here, soaking up the goodness from the Father that exists around me. I’m talking about an extra five minutes in bed with my husband, laughing and preparing for the day. I’m talking about locating and bringing my raincoat with me to work when I hear that it might be storming.

I’ve talked a lot about self-care in the past, and Shauna Niequist did a fantastic job with this post (a year ago exactly, in fact). Like she says, it’s important for us to know and believe our worth. It’s important to take care of ourselves so that we can care well for others. If we’re Jesus followers, it’s important to physically and emotionally and spiritually care for the temple his spirit calls home.

But I’m not really talking about self-care, at least not in the ways I used to. I’m talking about good old-fashioned gratitude. Thanks, God, for this pocket of time to take a bath. I’m gonna use all of the oils and bubbles. Thanks, God, for a job that allows such flexibility. I’m gonna pull over and clean out my car and wash the windows. Thanks, God, for lining up Holy Yoga instructor training this year. I’m gonna put a fancy warm blanket on my hard desk chair, and light a candle for every class. Thanks, God, for a husband who loves adventure in our home. I’m gonna keep buying bottles of wine until we learn to like one.

Here’s to every single candle of mine getting burned to the bottom by summer. Here’s to a couple of extra throw blankets purchased and left meaningfully around the house. Here’s to an empty bottle of the fancy shampoo. Here’s to a commitment to wearing winter gloves. Here’s to running out to my car late, coffee sloshing, because I braided my girls’ hair for school. Here’s to reaching for the goodness and favor of the Father, manifested in small moments of comforts sprinkled around my life.

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health & wellness

To the mat we go, in 2016.

I grew up hearing and learning and thinking and believing that yoga was evil. After all, the poses were based on Eastern religions. After all, Harry Potter was about witches and Pokemon glorified magic and violence. After all, wearing all black was indicative of someone’s preference for the dark side. It wasn’t my parents’ fault. It was just the way things were in the Church in the 80’s and 90’s. I didn’t question it. Instead, I grew up dancing competitively, with the fake eyelashes and the gyrating and the provocative costumes. And like a good girl, I avoided yoga like the devil, until a few years ago.

A few years ago, I met Brooke. I was introduced to Holy Yoga through the Influence Network. Quite simply, there was just no way to justify the argument against yoga once I’d experienced it for myself. God uses whatever and whoever he wants to bring people to himself. I believe the Creator has the right to use his own creation to reconcile, reclaim, and redeem. He’s not scared of anything, and we shouldn’t be either. And if people’s lives are being changed for his glory and their good, well, then the proof is in the pudding.

My life is just one example, but it was changed nonetheless. During the darkest point in my journey through postpartum anxiety and depression, I found Holy Yoga TV. I became a monthly subscriber and still support it to this day, even though I’ve since begun taking yoga classes at my local gym. Moving my body while meditating on God’s word, while someone sang Truth over me in the form of worship music was indescribable. It was so life-giving. It was healing. Transforming.

And so two years later, here were are. I’m ready to continue my journey in the form of Holy Yoga instructor training and I couldn’t be more excited and expectant. Like Brooke said on our first call tonight, “The only way I can know who I am is if I know who God is.” So I plan to spend the next few months asking God over and over who he is and what he thinks about me, while I read his word and get a little stronger and more aware of my body on my mat. Thank you, Jesus. To the mat we go, in 2016.

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health & wellness the whole & simple gospel

Shame doesn’t belong to me.

In addition to fear of failure, I’ve also carried a lot of shame around for weird, twisty unknown reasons. I’m one of those annoyingly-quick-to-apologize types, even when something isn’t my fault. I must have asked Jesus to come into my heart forty or so times before I hit puberty. I even dealt with some obsessive-compulsive behaviors in middle school, showering multiple times a day and washing my hands until they bled. My parents almost didn’t know what to do with me. They’d done everything right and kept me safe. Why did I fret like this?

I naturally mellowed out as I grew up, but the painful awareness of sin and the feelings of shame still lingered. It didn’t matter that Jesus had died for me on the cross, apparently, because I lived life like a slave to my emotional baggage. I became obsessed with what people thought of me, in real life and online. I’d chase people down if I thought I’d been misunderstood or given someone a wrong impression. I’d rehash situations and scenarios in my head and in conversation with my people.

But after babies, when all hell broke loose and I hit rock bottom, I learned a little something about shame. I learned that as a follower of Jesus, shame actually doesn’t have to apply to me anymore. My best friend Jessi sent me a text during a particularly rough spell that really got my wheels turning. You can’t be found out. There is nothing that Jesus doesn’t already know about me, nothing that he didn’t already take with him to the cross. There are no skeletons, no dirty laundry. There is nothing that the world can find out about me that changes the fact that I am in Christ. To get to me, they have to come to Jesus. And that’s actually quite exhilarating.

Most people agree on the difference between shame and guilt, and that it’s the shame addresses identity where guilt addresses behavior. So if shame deals with who I am, then who I am is a daughter of the Most High and absolutely nothing can change that. I am free to experience guilt when I do something wrong. Guilt serves a purpose, to remind me of God’s kindness that leads to repentance. But shame? Shame doesn’t belong to me anymore. Because I belong to Jesus.

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health & wellness the whole & simple gospel

Freedom in failure.

Some days I blame it on my daddy issues, and some days I blame it on being a firstborn, and every day I blame it on my nature. It is in my nature to work hard and be successful. Not the best, but successful. I will finish, and I will finish strong. It is in my nature to please people and make them proud of me. I will not make them regret choosing me for ____. None of those desires are wrong, but somewhere along the way growing up, I placed them a little too high on my priority list. Like, higher than people and their feelings and my emotional and spiritual well being.

I’ve spent the last couple of decades living in fear of failure, and the last couple of years doing something about it. First things first, I acknowledged it on a counselor’s couch. He’s the one who slid that sheet across the desk and showed me the power I had allowed that fear in my life. Next, I began speaking about it to my husband. I brought it up all of the time, in all of the little examples that flew by without him noticing. This is why I don’t want to work out with you or sing with you. This is why I overreact when dinner is late, or when a homework assignment gets missed. This is why I’m so easily embarrassed when you and the boys pick on me. Being scared of being a bad wife, a bad mom, a bad friend, a bad leader… it paralyzed me. And then it made me bitter.

But over the last year or so, I’ve begun to heal and accept things for what they are. Regardless of the path my life takes, there will be failures along the way. It sounds silly to say that I had to practice acknowledging that, but it’s true. I’ve spent a lot of my life so far compensating, which is quite hilarious when you think about the work that Jesus did for me. Nothing I could ever do would be great enough to earn my way into a “right standing” with Him and the Father. Jesus took care of that on the cross. He paid for my salvation and then he gave it to me freely. So I’m not sure why I’ve tended to lean that way, feeling like I can overcome the negatives with a whole lot of positives. I will let my husband and kids down. I will screw up at work and in friendships. And every single time I do, I get to plead the blood of Jesus. I get to confess, repent, and move on. With this perspective, there is total freedom.

From now on, I want to really learn what it means to walk by the Spirit. I know that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And I know from experience that where freedom is found, there is hope and there is joy. I am free to live a life without fear because I know the truth and the hope and the joy that lies on the other side of failure, thanks to Jesus.

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