Fitness

Scripture:
The Lord will guide you continually, watering your life when you are dry and keeping you healthy, too.  You will be like a well watered garden, like an ever flowing spring. Isaiah 58:11   

Everything in my life seems to be tied to my level of physical fitness.  When I feel better, when my body is working without so much effort, I am more free to do more things with more energy and joy.  Improving my health is now a very high priority for me, but I find it an area in which I am likely to become discouraged by the slowness of progress.  I am learning perseverance, and respecting the immense value of that skill.  My body needs to be continually nudged into remembering what it feels like to move and flex and stretch. 

Recently we had some gentle rainfall over the course of an entire day, instead of the summer storms that lap against our basements. I appreciated again the beauty of raindrops and the life-giving nature of water.  Our bodies are composed of so much water, and water surrounded us as we grew where our original seeds were planted.   Water is blessed for our baptism, water sustains us, water cleans us.  Those raindrops inspired me to use my daily shower as a time for renewal and cleansing, because part of me needs to let go of burdens that are holding me back from focusing on protecting and promoting my health.  Beyond that, I am grateful for the image of tiny raindrops and little steps collectively bringing about more massive things.  Finally, the energy of moving water, whether in pattering drops, splashing fountains, bubbling wells, river currents, or ocean waves, is a lovely constant to tune into when my efforts are flagging.  I can't always exercise in water, but I can imagine the feeling of swimming, of propelling myself through that soothing environment, which, due to my body makeup, also supports me with so much buoyancy. 

My daughter has been hospitalized the last two weeks for an infection, in a Korean hospital near her current home with her Korean husband, whom she married a year ago.  She has been on IV fluids with medications mixed in, and I imagine that slow drip going into the line, through her veins. I am visualizing her healing by picturing the blessings of those restorative fluids.   That kind of slow drip is what I realize is the way to become a tiny bit healthier every day.  This is a race for the tortoise me, not the hare me; although I hope to move my body less like a tortoise and more like a hare as this process goes on. 

Prayer: God of tiny droplets and slow drips, thank you for the miracle of every cell that makes up the body you have blessed me with.  Help me with what I put into my body and what I do with my body.  Open my eyes to the full joy of living in your healing love.  Let me learn how to love all of me as much as you do.  Give me your rain to wash away what is holding me back, and help me to clear the way for the ever flowing spring of your energy.  Baptize me daily in your font, so that I can be new as I start over again and again. Send your healing to all those whom I encounter, and help me also to be a fountain of your healing.  Amen.

Mollie Manner

mmanner@nebrwesleyan.edu