Yoga & You! This post is not really about Yoga...

     Sometimes when I'm angry I will slam cupboard doors and get in bed and feel sorry for myself.(I'm too mature to slam regular doors now that I'm months away from my 30th birthday.)   Sometimes I do this with the intention of going to sleep, like I will pout my way out of this day and really show 'em.  This happened recently and I laid in bed and wondered why I couldn't just go to sleep and forget about the world and the marriage and the family and the house and all of the things.

      While laying there seething and justifying and calming down because the tantrum train was running low on reason and steam, I realized that my anger had jumped out of my brain and nestled right into the place where my neck meets my shoulders.  I was so tense that I was holding my head off the pillow with the muscles that live in the neck-meets-the-shoulders place, and it turns out that a big stubborn head is very heavy to hold up.  I've recently  discovered there are a lot of heavy parts of me. I discovered this by exercising.

    I write about this, not to impress you with the gentleness of my spirit, but once again to tell my story.  My story, I hope, is always about my God who teaches me stuff, and then I try my best to use the English language to translate the lessons to my tiny group of people who might read my blog.  Right now, in this season of my life - you are my people, and this is the place where I get to use my gifts. Gifts - the way I'm wired - like my temper, and what I hope is a teachable spirit, and words that help me sort it all out.

     My wise and caring mother taught me a trick long ago about relaxing when I was very upset or tense. If you were raised by a wise and caring mother, you have her little voice in the back of your head all the time. She's terribly helpful, always reminding me to unplug my curling iron and wear my seatbelt; to switch the laundry so it doesn't get smelly and to pick the important battles with my children, and leave the lesser ones alone. And so it was this very helpful voice who came to me in the middle of the anger and I remembered a little of her story.

    When she was a ten, she used to watch a TV show called Lillias Yoga & You.  Lillias wore a pink leotard and leggings (you see why I love this story), and at the beginning of each program, she would instruct her pupils to lay down on the floor. Then she would tell them to relax every muscle, beginning with the tips of their toes all the way to the top of their heads.  Ten-year-old Helen would relax every one of those muscles, and then go to bed fully relaxed, skipping the rest of the yoga. This approach to exercise she apparently passed on to me, which is why I pay $15 a month to go to Pilates and lay in child's pose.  (Child's pose is called that because the people who lay in it have a child, but they are just trying to have a quiet moment of pretending to exercise while their precious and very intense preschooler is in the child center. Some people do...I've heard.)

   So I laid in bed, and let go of all the stress and striving and effort that was trying to hold all the heaviest parts of me. My head is heavy. My anger is heavy. My expectations of myself are heaviest, heaviest of all.  But intentionally and slowly and methodically, I can relax every single muscle and lay all those heavy things down.

     A few days later, I reread the story about Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. When the walls came a tumblin' down.  I reread this story because our church family is going through "The Story" in which you read the Bible in narrative form. And during a few quiet moments with God, in my guest room, I listened quietly to the Lover of my soul. If you are a Jesus follower, and you have taken time to just be quiet and listen, maybe you have experienced that what doesn't come in words, comes in pictures and ideas, or very clear convictions. He echoes through various sources and experiences, and draws memories from your brain to teach you about Himself.  This particular day he clearly showed me that he wants me to relax everything and give it to Him. He wants me to intentionally lay down every wall and relax every muscle inside my heart, until He can move around freely in there.  It wasn't a demand, but an assurance of what He is already doing. A statement about His character and how He is relentlessly pursuing me, and changing me into someone like Himself.  Gently. Patiently. Lovingly. He is like that.

     Surrender can be like that.  The beginning of surrender can be like finding a rock-hard muscle in a neck-and-shoulder place.   I don't even know how tightly I'm holding onto something until it starts to ache and I start losing sleep.  I don't even know how big and important and scary something is to me until it wakes me up in the middle of the night and tries to run a quick 5k in the hamster brain wheel.  And these are the warning signs...the growing pains before the growth.

    Surrender can feel dramatic like Jericho. Sometimes it has to be a big march around, a determined trust and prayer and obedience process, and a big shout and trumpet blast and God just crushes that thing that I was so afraid of.  I've had a few big surrenders - like at high school FCA camp when the music and the speakers and the puberty and the Spirit of the Living God all had me in tears and I went home different. Changed. Or like lying flat on my back when a pregnancy test had me scared senseless and I didn't really have any other ideas, so I told God he could just take it from here. The walls of this temple have sometimes been taken down by sledgehammer, and eventually by the Consuming Fire Himself...Sometimes He just starts over with ashes, just because He can.
   

     But most surrender is slower, and calmer, and quieter.  It's like Lillias and Helen, in routine, regular moments. It's more like Jesus just stretching me a little bit at a time out of my preconceived notions of Him and out of my little bitty comfort zone.  Little by little, Yahweh told the Israelites,(Ex. 23) He would deliver them from their enemies and help them come home into Promised Land.  Little by little, he is remodeling my heart.  Little by little, I relax the muscles that are holding up all the things I think I need to control, and just rest in Him.  Little by little I can say no to food choices, or gossip or slander or embellishing a story to make it better.  Little by little, I can say yes to unexpected house guests (without FREAKING OUT!), feeding another family or babysitting for a mom who needs a little help from time to time, or subbing in 1st grade Sunday school. These things might seem mundane, but look closely- they are loosening chains of injustice, feeding orphans and widows, clothing those that need clothes and sheltering those who need shelter.

    There will be seasons of Jericho surrender, and seasons of Yoga surrender. I trust Him with both. He might ask me to do some big time surrenders and give up some big things. Like maybe my house. Or maybe my favorite piece of Nebraska that I live and breathe and walk on. Right now, though, He is letting me hang out in child's pose, which literally is how I pray many mornings, forehead to the floor; and figuratively - being in the season of raising boys. Mostly, He is asking me to have an open-concept floor plan when it comes to my heart, and with moment-to-moment, little-by-little yes's and no's, follow and emulate His heart.

      Turns out the things that I wanted to control were really heavy, and I'm so much happier and healthier when I let God heft the heavy for me.  He knows what I need before I ask, yet I spend more time than I'd like to admit slamming cupboard doors and lying in bed worrying problems to death.

      Tenderly, though, gently, lovingly - He stretches me and relaxes all the neck-and-shoulder places. He takes it on His own neck and shoulders. He already carried it all to Calvary, and best news - He won.

Matthew 11:28-30
Come to me all you weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Stop slamming cupboards and holding heavy things, and come.