Inward Hips, Inward Heart

I’ve been doing a lot of stretching and flexibility practice these past few weeks, thanks to Alivia D’Andrea and her inspirational tutorials.

Anyway, me being the nerdy theology geek I am, I began to notice a similarity between stretching one’s body and stretching one’s heart.

Like this.

A big part of flexibility is pushing past your limits.

This proves especially hard for me because I have hips with a sharp inward bend. This inward curve my hips have make it hard for me to do stuff like straddle splits and leg holds and scorpions. (You getting it?) And it takes lots of pain and work to make the smallest bit of improvement in its flexibility.

Another thing which annoys and debilitates me greatly is that I have hunched, inward curving shoulders. Inward curving.

It reminds me of my heart.

My heart (and maybe yours) has a sharp inward curve, too.

Inward because have I ever observed what I’ve spoken of?

What I do I think about? Myself. What do I talk about? Myself. Whom do I (instinctively) serve? Myself. And while I–and not I,  but God–is at work in my heart making me a better person, it still hurts to get out of my natural, inward focused angle and stretch myself and think about other people, serve other people, love other people.

Just like it hurts to stretch your hips out when their natural tendency is in.

We need to be less self focused and more others focused. Less inward curving and more outward curving.

If we cannot, endure pain to push ourselves out of the way we are now we will never be free.

Yet here is the last note about flexibility, and an encouragement.

After you work hard, after you push yourself, after you grit your teeth through pain–you feel wonderful! There is nothing more rewarding than working hard and finally getting that scorpion, that math problem right, that video edited.

And for our spiritual life? We must be purified through fire, to become better. We must bear pain. But in the end, we WILL be better.

Trust God. Focus outwards.

PS- Guys, I’ve recently upgraded (ish…) computers, and when I’m looking on my website, I see some things I don’t like, such as these annoying ads….Does it bother any of you guys? I’m going to be praying about whether I should upgrade my website think. I think I have so many followers my website is being spammed with ads I don’t want. Will you guys pray for me that God would clearly show me whether He wants me to continue this blog? 🙂

the wanderer