10/3 8am Power w/Josh
Today we played around with a funky forearm stand - instead of having both forearms on the ground, you put on forearm and one palm down, and lift a leg to press your way up. Forearm stand and I have a fickle relationship, but I've been working on it. I fell out of this pose, and laughed it off and tried again. Josh came over to spot, and I felt myself dumping into my shoulder, so I pushed and lifted out of it. I'm starting to like falling and struggling because it reminds me that things don't always turn out how we planned. And just because something is unexpected doesn't make it bad. In fact, God has a habit of flipping our expectations and lives on their heads; it's best to write in pencil and smile when the eraser comes through.
I want to arrive. I want to get to wherever I'm going and stay there. That's why I was such a ferocious planner of my life. But I'm learning to just keep moving, keep walking, keep taking teeny tiny steps. And it's in those teeny tiny steps and moments that I become, actually, who I am. We won't arrive. But we can become. And that's the most hopeful thing I can think of. Thank God I was wrong about everything I had planned. Thank God we weren't on my schedule, because even though I dragged my heels and checked my planner every five seconds while I watched my life change in his hands, I really like the places we've ended up, and the thing I've seen along the way. Now when I think about the future, I try to write of pencil. Shauna Niequist
the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you. Deuteronomy 23:5
10/3 5:15pm Power w/Josh
The flow tonight was quite different from usual. When different comes, we have a choice: we can fight it, or embrace it. I smiled more tonight, played more, enjoyed more tonight than I have in a long time. My pastor often says that we should hold all our hopes, dreams, things and lives with open hands - with gratitude for what God gives, yet knowing that He could change the game at any time and still be just as good. When we choose joy, we embrace that Christ who came to make our joy full and lives abundant (John 15:11, 10:10).
It's rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to choose to dance, to choose to love your life. It's much easier and much more common to be miserable. But I choose to do what I can do to create hope, to celebrate life, and the act of celebrating connects me back to that life I love. We could just live our normal, day-to-day lives, saving all the good living up for someday, but I think today, just plain today, is worth it. I tihnk it's our job, each of us, to live each day like it's a special occasion, because we've been given a gift. We get to live in this beautiful world. When I live purposefully and well, when I dance instead of sitting it out, when I let myself laugh hard, when I wear my favorite shoes on a regular Tuesday, that regular Tuesday is better. Right now, around our house, all the leaves are falling, and there's no reason that they have to turn electric bright red before they fall, but they do, and I want to live like that. I want to say, "What can I do today that brings more beauty, more energy, more hope?" Because it seems like that's what God is saying to us, over and over. "What can I do today to remind you again how good this life is? You think the color of the sky is good now, wait till sunset. You think oranges are good? Try a tangerine". He's a crazy delightful mad scientist and keeps coming back from the lab with great, unbelievable new things, and it's a gift. It's a gift to be a part of it. Niequist
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