On How My Physical Experience Affects Spiritual Discipline

Attending to my physical body is a significant exercise in spiritual discipline for me. Finding the balance in consistent work and recovery, through various life seasons, uncovers my stubborn motivations as I earnestly strive to submit to God’s pace.

My illustration here is a physical one, but I see manifestations of it in other dear hearts:

Single seeking relationship. 
Diseased seeking a cure. 
Unemployed seeking an answer. 
Ignorant seeking awakening. 
Dreaming seeking practicality.
Grief seeking comfort.
Foolish seeking wisdom. 
Sedentary seeking action. 
Bitter seeking peace.

A common condition known as diastasis recti is gaining recognition. Most women who’ve ever been pregnant (as well as men and women who have been overweight) have the split between their abdominal muscles that can affect bladder control, back discomfort, posture, strength, and even lead to dangerous hernias or other issues. The core support God gave us with so many beautifully working muscles has a weak spot in our very-significant-to-all-our-activities trunk. I didn’t even know about it until our second of three sons was almost 2, and I was running intensely on a daily basis, not realizing how my body was damaged. Or, more importantly, how I could help it.

Here’s a pic I took last week of my current belly, after three big boys and lots of intense exercise have affected the surface and the depth of my body. Bellies have all sorts of seasons, huh? I didn’t realize my belly-button could disappear in all the extra scarred skin and the diastasis canyon. Haha:

32-year-old me likes this belly with stories of love, sacrifice, and depth pulled through every mark left by my three boys. Diastasis recti and extra, stretched skin are reminders of glory.

I wear a girdle when I run to support my organs. Lol! About six months ago I consulted a surgeon about repairing the gap because my organs were pushing through during certain exercises, but that kind of surgery is tremendous, so I decided to work on strength first to see if it will restore its function without surgical intervention. All this time later, after multiple attempts to work on the strength, my gap is not any smaller, but the organs are staying inside. Progress! I worked with a physical therapist for a few weeks in October to learn recommended core exercises that will possibly help the muscles come back together. They have sustained a lot of damage, but I am working hard and vigilantly to run nonetheless. 

Multiple setbacks with my tendons have occurred. I am learning how rest is as important to fruitfulness as work. Sigh. If I could take it as slow as I should, instead of trying to be as fast as I was, then I would probably be a lot farther ahead of where I am now, after having to nurse injuries. It’s all an adventurous journey, though, right? Not an endless arrival at success.

The Bible’s words about our inferior plans in the shadow of God’s supreme ones could have helped me handle this hiccup in my plans better than I have (Proverbs 16:9, 19:21...). Our third baby is nine months old. My pregnancy with him came at the rear of an IT band injury that postponed some long-distance running goals of mine. Telling y’all I have handled the interruption with grace would be untrue. Well, I guess GOD’s grace is all over it because of all the exhaustingly tangible transformation taking place inside me as I learn what matters best. But I have not not handled it gracefully. It has taken a lot of humbling (more like "grumbling") denials of my plans to calm my over-ambitious spirit to redirection. And I still fight every second of every day with obsessive worries and trying to do more than I can. This is not just with running, but with a lot of the expectations I desire, as well as the obligations I hate to feel; but running is more socially acceptable (and safer) to share in this way. 

The trust I know I can have in how blessed life will be by the sovereignty I beg God to enact in our details, by the rich blessings He gives that I could never imagine to ask for, are met with a ridiculous amount of resistance from what I think I want or what I think people expect of me.
As long as I am alive, I feel like I’ll be living between my attempted control AND the true freedom God is trying to give me. That’s where my life is happening, where my heart is softening and strengthening, in between the tension of me versus Him. The tension is uncomfortable, but it proves connection and progression, sometimes regression and having to regain balance, but always being aware of where to find traction, constantly learning how to get back up again.

Here’s a poem (shaped like my diastasis recti) to address this spiritual discipline of finding balance in the tension of life’s uncontrollable reality *with* my ability to influence it.

A smooth path, pitless     An impassable abyss, edged

Heeded goals        Ignored requests

Instant pleasure            Ever deprivation

My way                His way

Certain action                    Confused will

Strength                     Weakness

 

Strife, falsely redemptive & mine                    Rest, humbling power from Him

Unintended birthright                      Dislocated joint

A name for myself        All for His Name