Muscles screaming. There’s a tremor starting somewhere. Sweat is beading on my forehead. Why am I doing this again? “Don’t forget to breathe. On the exhale, try to deepen that stretch. Lean in, longer…longer… and hold it for 5…4…you’re doing great…3…”
One of the things that I have been doing lately to maintain a level of sanity is beginning my day with some exercise and devotion time. One to awaken the body, the other, the mind and spirit. It has not been easy to get up before my children to establish this routine. Especially the exercise part. That is a rather new discipline for me and I am learning that stretching these long neglected muscles is not really my favorite thing.
While reading recently on the benefits of yoga and stretching, I came across an article and this quote:
“Stretching keeps the muscles flexible, strong, and healthy, and we need that flexibility to maintain a range of motion in the joints. Without it, the muscles shorten and become tight. Then, when you call on the muscles for activity, they are weak and unable to extend all the way. That puts you at risk for joint pain, strains, and muscle damage.” https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-importance-of-stretching
When I read that, I was struck by how that could be applied to life right now.
I don’t know about you, but I feel as though the past 8 weeks have been one huge stretch. And I’m not just talking about the quick pull and release of snapping a rubber band, but more the suspended tension of a taut bowstring as it awaits the convergence of timing and trajectory. Physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Stretched so thin in places the light shines through frayed gossamer threads barely holding together. Revealing things that I didn’t see before. Some of them beautiful. Most of them ugly. I am finding things that I didn’t even know needed to be stretched are being stretched. It is not fun. It is not what I planned. It’s not even what I would have chosen if given half the chance, benefits regardless, and yet here I am.
The last two weeks have been very stretching ones. Days of mixed, raw emotions and new case developments for both our foster babes – some of them joyful and others painfully showcasing the brokenness in our world. Plans set in motion to determine their futures, while offering nothing final, nothing secure. Two weeks ago, we celebrated the birthday of our first foster little and we also marked the two year anniversary of the day that we brought him home for the very first time. A tiny newborn bundle entrusted to our care, to be loved like our own with the everyday reminder that he was someone else’s first. I remember the moment the phone rang that morning. When we said “yes”, we started down the road to some of the greatest “stretching” we have ever experienced. Within an hour and half we were walking out of the hospital, with a tiny bean tucked into a car seat and headed for home and a life vastly different than I had ever envisioned for myself or my family. Stretch.
That moment our lives changed forever. Our hearts stretched. Our home was stretched. Our way of life was stretched. Our strength was stretched. Our family and relationships were stretched. Our faith was stretched. And when we returned him to his birth mama 6 months later, we were stretched even further. Thrown to our knees with questions and broken hearts. Not understanding, but choosing to trust. And when we got up again, we saw that in the stretching, growth had taken place. Growth and strength enough to allow us to say “Yes” again to another little baby boy who moved into our hearts and home only a few months later and begin the process of loving him and another new family all over again.
At the turn of this New Year, the word that dropped into my heart to frame our next 12 months was Expansion. I didn’t understand what that might mean. 6 days later, our phone rang and our family expanded again as our Little Gift was returned to our home and our care. But that transition was not a smooth one. It has been full of stretching and new growth. Much of it painfully humbling. And then, just as it seemed we were beginning to find a new rhythm, we were thrown into a new kind of challenge when lives all over the world were impacted forever by COVID-19. Stretch.
Listening to a message recently by Pastor Craig Groeschel, he said this and it stuck with me:
We have to stretch to grow. My growing boys and their ever shortening sleeves and pant legs are a daily reminder of that fact. But stretching isn’t comfortable. It’s not pleasant. But it’s necessary for growth. And sometimes that growth is painful. Without being stretched we never leave comfortable. There is no flexibility. Stretching brings health and strength and once we have been stretched we can call upon those rejuvenated “muscles” to respond when we need them.
There is so much that happens outside of our control. EVERY. DAY. Things that impact us, decisions made for us, events that shape our world and our lives. We cannot always control what happens outside of us. But we are in charge of how we respond. Of how we will or will not allow it to change us or shape us. When we fight the stretch, rather than leaning in, learning to accept and adapt, we may find ourselves injured in the process.
Stretch. We currently find ourselves “locked in”, but maybe we are just cocooning. Maybe we are preparing for expansion, so we need to be painfully stretched first. We find ourselves face to face with the people closest to us, the ones we claim to love. Seeing some of them for the first time in a long time and realizing that they are strangers to us. Families and marriages and relationships rocked to their core. Stretch. We find the technology that often took such precedence in our lives now become our lifeline for connection, only to realize that it leaves us dissatisfied and we needed each other more than we thought. We find ourselves wanting to reach through screens to embrace loved ones on the other side. To find any way possible to spend time together, when we used to allow far too many “things” and busyness to keep us apart. Stretch. We find ourselves prioritizing the things that matter: family, health, community, faith. People who otherwise would never have had interaction are coming together in new and beautiful ways. Sharing their talents and time, resources and ideas. Those with much sharing with those who have little. Those with little reaching out to share with those who have none in tremendously generous ways. Nature has been allowed to breathe. To heal. To recreate. Creativity has climbed out of shuttered closets and the courage to try something new, to be brave and unveil the things that have been quietly nurtured in the corner of hearts begins to unfurl. Stretch.
But while beauty is unfolding, the dark things have also begun to surface. The thoughts and emotions and anxieties and traumas so easily buried in the “noise” have now begun to make their voices heard in the silence. Stretch. What was simmering just under the surface has begun to erupt. For some instead of gratitude and connection, there is loneliness and depression and anger and fear. It means lashing out at those who are close. Or a deeper self-isolation as they disconnect even further. Being “forgotten” has only proven that no one cared about them anyway. Those whose only escapes from their torments have been cut off and they find themselves bearing unspeakable pain. Stretch. For some, the stretching is something to be fought. And instead of producing the good that it could and making way for growth, it is causing harm. The ugly has come into the light. Selfishness, incivility, and callousness fueled by fear and pride and greed has been laid bare. And the aftermath of its effects will be devastating and heartbreaking. Is possible to be stretched too far? There will be those who will come out of all of this and have become better people for it, their lives enriched and bright with new perspective. But others will emerge broken, frightened, and disillusioned. Damaged.
Stretch. What if this stretching is revealing the places within our society, our culture, that need to change? What if our stretching is revealing a darker side to the life we sailed through in blissful ignorance before? Or highlighting the importance of all the “little guys”, the essential workers and front-liners that keep our world running smoothly who have long gone unrecognized for their contributions? Perhaps that is why we are here. Perhaps the lessons to be learned wouldn’t have happened any other way. Perhaps the course our world was headed on could only be redirected through something radical that would unite us. All nations, all creeds, all religions, all socioeconomic backgrounds – facing the same thing together and finding that the huge differences we believed kept us apart were but an illusion.
For me, this season has at times been full of anxiety and upheaval, tremendously humbling, and frightfully discouraging. If not for the Hope that I have in Jesus, it would be crushing. But how many people are living every day without that Hope? How many face the mundane – day in and day out with little change – and all they can see are the clouds and reminders of what is no more? Even as the restrictions are beginning to be lifted, the road ahead is long and the world coming out at the other end will be a vastly different one than what we have known.
And so as followers of Christ, we find ourselves perfectly poised to be His Hands and Feet of Christ to a world that is in desperate need. A world teetering on the precipice of a new beginning filled with uncertainty. Can we continue to ignore the walking wounded in our midst when our own Great Physician went out of His way to search them out? Could we ever ask for a better opportunity to love our neighbour in tangible ways? To share the Truth? To shine the Light of Emmanuel in the dark places? To see the “unseen” and be a friend to the lonely? To evolve from our stagnancy and complacency into the living, breathing, active, world-changers we were called to be?
A muscle stretched regularly can be called upon to action. Unstretched and neglected, it shrivels and atrophies. Apathy takes root. It becomes ineffective and useless. The Apostle Paul said in his letter to Timothy to be ready in season and out of season to proclaim the Good News (2 Tim 4:2). If I am not being stretched in the off season, if I am not growing, I won’t be ready for the action required of me in season.
Yes, our stretching may be prolonged. But to fight it would be to deny the benefits it offers us. To curb the effectiveness with which we are able to rebound when it’s over. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, there are many challenges we face, both privately and as a global community. The world as we know it will never be the same and we will all have a part to play in the reshaping and rebuilding of its future. Rebuilding, evolving, healing…it’s going to take a while. So, I encourage you to take this time. While you’re being stretched and pulled in every direction. Lean in. Surrender to the stretch…and hold it. Allow the good work to be done in you. Find ways to establish new disciplines and healthy habits. Learn a new skill. Build relationships. Explore creatively. Read, expand, grow, pray. Try something you’ve never done before. But don’t forget to breathe. Making time for silence and contemplation. For rest. To reflect and internalize. Then like an arrow, nocked and awaiting release, be prepared to be propelled into a new season of expansion when the stretch is complete.
As uncomfortable and frightening as this whole thing is, I know that for me the only way forward is to allow the Creator to create in me. To seek Him, as though He were the only Oasis in a parched desert (because He is). To lean in, deepen, learn, grow. Though muscles scream and tremors abound. Though the sweat and tears may be running down my face. Stretch. And hold it…for as long as is required.
Of Shattered Things 