Stretch and Strengthen {Your Middle Aged Body}


Disclaimer:  the woman in the above photo is not me.

From the time I was a wee thing, touching my toes has not come naturally.  I've never been overweight, per se, just wildly inflexible.  Guess what factor, as we age, is one of the most important in overall health and vitality?

Flexibility.  Otherwise known as "range of motion".

Lucky me.

Since I myself am rather inflexible by birth, and have fought vicious lower back pain in my middle age, I have had to find good resources in my quest to Stretch and Strengthen.  I'm excited to share my sources - one of which has been "life changing" to a young woman in our church.  (Her words, not mine...)

The first resource is a classic.  (Meaning:  its old.)  Honestly, though, you cannot improve upon it.  I've researched it, so trust me on this.  This is the best resource out there:

 


A book entitled Stretch and Strengthen by Judy Alter  (and no, I am not an Amazon affiliate.  I make all of nothing if you click that link and buy the book...)

The next resource has done me a world of good, when I actually do it, and it has literally been life changing for a young woman in my church, to whom I recommended the following:



The Miracle Ball Method  by Elaine Petrone


There is no need for an expensive gym membership, just to strengthen your body.  Sometimes, and depending on the location, a gym can be so...so...either "college girl" (cheap gym) or it might scream "I am a woman of a certain age" (posh gym).  Let's strike the middle, shall we?  Let's be different.  Renegade.  Wonderfully outside that box...the one with all the equipment and the heated indoor pool.

Try this app, available for iphone and android, called You Are Your Own Gym

Any woman who actually believes she needs a gym membership to get in shape - I will ask her to drop and give me 50 push-ups.  Bam.  Simple as that.

I have always been a big believer in strengthening using your own body weight.  (Well, I've always believed in it ever since I was a certified fitness trainer in my very early years, who taught everyone else the proper form on all the machines and the free weights.  I became convinced at a young age that there was a better way)


If you were heretofore unaware of these treasures, this one post alone is worth the price of admission. 

I'm so glad you came by to see me today...

Your {Middle Age} Body

Welcome to 31 Days of Celebrating Middle Age!


You just can't address the topic of middle age, without addressing a woman's middle aged body.  (And dressing a woman's middle aged body - but that is for later in this series!)  The fact is, and we all know this:  In spite of every effort, our bodies and our beauty will continue to age.

Oh goody.  Isn't that just precious?

The good news is, you are as young as you will ever be right now, today.  Live it, to the full!

The bad news is, you are as young as you will ever be right now, today.  Take care of your temple.  It's your "brick house", honey.  It's mighty-mighty.

::cough::

I will admit to you that where it concerns self-care, I still "see men as trees walking".  In other words, I am still working on some things, and God is still at work in me.  All I know, is what I know, and I am happy to share that with you.

I want to teach you how to SWAP your body.  Doesn't that sound just like a hit funk song by Chaka Kahn?  (And doesn't every good teacher love an acronym?) 

I know, right?  You want me to stop bragging and carry on with my FBS (my Funky Bad Self).  You can't even believe I made that term up all by myself.

But I did.

SWAP.  It's the 80/20 principle of self care.  (...the 20% of your efforts that get you 80% of the desired result.)

SWAP.  It's the I-Ching of health.

SWAP.  It's the new 40, the new black, the new rage.

SWAP.  It's what works for me, and it's about all I know.

tretch and Strengthen

Water 

Aerobic 

Portion control 

At risk of sounding overly-funky, I'll say that I'll "break it down" for you in the coming days...you won't want to miss it.





{Look up over your head! Right now! That disco ball I ordered for you is dropping down. Dance break...dance break....dance break...}

31 Days of Celebrating the Middle {Choose to Dare Greatly}



Ecclesiastes says "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof."

It would be easy to begin the Boston Marathon.  It would be amazing to cross the finish line.

I hear it's the middle that bites.  Every time.  The middle is that place in life where all your mistakes - every error in judgment - begins to show.  You can't hide it anymore.  You can't hide those extra pounds, that red convertible, that divorce, or that strained relationship. You can't mask your own lack of passion or zeal for life. 

Your finish line - your entire destiny -  depends on the quality of the choices you make in the middle.

Hang in there.  Dig in and settle down to work.  Choose to dare greatly, and then choose not to quit.

I adapted a Teddy Roosevelt quote for us.  Seemed appropriate, just now...


“It is not the critic who counts; not the woman who points out how the strong woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends herself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if she fails, at least she fails while daring greatly. So that her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”





  

31 Days of Celebrating Middle Age {5 Indications You May Be in a Real Crisis }


So you, like me, can admit to "seeing men as trees walking".  You see, but you don't see.  You are on your way to being healed...you just aren't there yet.

Or maybe you, like me in years past, need a little more convincing that your perspective on life and spiritual things is blurry and as yet unclear.  You think you are seeing clearly, but that's only because you think that what you see, is all there is to see. 

Ah!  There is so much more to be aware of, if that's the case.  Even if you don't think you  need mercy, there is Mercy in the Middle for you.

5 Indicators of Mid-Life Deception {Warning:  Course Correction Necessary}

1.  When you find yourself withholding worship and service. 

      ...because you're older now.  You are busy.  You are tired.  You have a career to build or maintain.  You have a family.  You are educated and smart, now.  When you were younger, you used to worship and serve with passion, but you've "matured" since then.

2.  When you find yourself gravitating to extremes: 

    ...either letting go of Godly habits, at the expense of your witness;  or locking down on Godly habits at the expense of your relationships.

3.  When you find yourself with a growing attraction to the world

      ...regardless of how we seek to put our "spin" on it, or justify it, the fact is we are more concerned with building our own house, than we are with building up the house of God (which is always His people).  Somebody has to work to pay for all the toys, right?

4.  When you find yourself in rebellion against legitimate authority

     ....because, well, you know.  That man is not the boss of you.  You've worked hard, and you have your own gifts. You are beyond needing to be under authority.

Well, then you are the exception to the rule, only in the whole history of ever!  Once again, carefully  note that I use the term legitimate authority.  The difference between legitimate authority, and illegitimate authority is motive and track record.  Please see the above link for further clarification.

5.  When you find yourself with theological doubts.

     ...all that stuff you used to believe about the sovereignty of God?  You aren't so sure anymore.  In fact, you are a bit jaded and critical of those who do believe and teach.  You mask it well by saying, "All I know for sure, is that I don't know anything for sure."  Sounds so humble, but guess what?

You can know for sure.

 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.  (Deut. 29:29)

PS. and by the way...the thing revealed to us today is Christ.  It is no longer the law.  Under the Old Covenant, the law was all they had.  God designed it that way.  But now, all God wants you to know, and all you can know for sure, is Christ.

God has chosen to make known...the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.  (Colossians 1:27)

Hear the words of the greatest keeper of the law that ever was, other than Jesus Himself, the apostle Paul:

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (I Corinthians 2:2)

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One of the best books on distinguishing between law and grace is Silent Killers of the Faith (Overcoming Legalism and Performance Based Religion) by Dr. Steve Crosby

      

31 Days of Celebrating Middle Age {What Do You See?}



So here we are, throwing a word-party for The Middle.  I can't tell you how much it means to me that you'd even come.

No, really.  I mean it.  Who does that?  Only us...only you and me. 

"The Middle".  We stereotype it, we attempt to prepare for it, we compensate for it.  And we instinctively, I think, fear it. 

You have your "middle children".  Don't listen to what the psychologists say about them, whatever you do!  You have "the middle school years" - the most difficult of all of childhood, research has proven.  And you have your mid-life crisis.  Why are middling things so hard?  It seems that the middle of anything is guaranteed to have its hopeless moments.

God has made dear and precious and very personal promises to each one of us.  But in the middle, we often don't yet see the full manifestation of them.  We have experienced the healing touch of Christ in our lives, but only in measure.  Those promises are closer to fulfillment now than ever before, but we still only see them "as trees walking".

Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, "Do you see anything?"And he looked up and said, "I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around." (Mark 8:23, 24)

Very God asks you and I today, "Do you see anything?"

He asks us, not because He doesn't already know the answer, and not because He doesn't intend to fully restore us.

He asks us, because we need to acknowledge that we don't yet see as we ought.

Particularly if you are still under the law, if there is any link between your performance and God's acceptance and therefore His favor,  you still see "men as trees walking". You've experienced the touch of Jesus, maybe even come to a saving knowledge, but you are not seeing clearly. Yet you might go years - alas, decades - insisting that you see just fine.

Then, one day, you hear the gospel preached by a pastor-teacher who is walking in a New Covenant understanding, and you realize that "seeing men as trees walking" isn't the same as seeing Jesus clearly and centrally. You have not been seeing the world as you could and should.

Does this offend you?

Let Jesus put His hands on you again, afresh. The moment you see the God of all grace, the moment your focus is on the finished work of Christ and not on your performance, you finally see everyone else clearly, and through the eyes of love. In fact, through the lens of the gospel of grace, as taught in all the New Testament, everything in all of Scripture becomes clear.


Once you clearly see the difference between an Old Covenant understanding of God, and a New Covenant reality...once you see that all of Scripture, Genesis to Revelation, is really about Jesus...once you see that God thought it wisdom to reconcile us through Him, and impute to us His obedience...

...well, when you suddenly see all that, you will see exactly "why the (heck) it means so much to me" to tell the world.

The power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yeah, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see, yeah, yeah




Your Spirit - Part III {In the Middle}

 31 Days of Celebrating Middle Age


I know, right?  The middle is barely acknowledged, much less celebrated.  All of us have blown up balloons and wrapped presents for beginnings.  We all have assembled and remembered and brought flowers to endings.  But no normal person throws a word-party simply because...

...we're alive...

...we're here...

...we have regrets...

...we don't give a rip...

...we will celebrate anyhow...

No, this is no normal celebration, because I am no normal middle aged woman, and neither are you, thankyouverymuch.  Hide the husband, hide the kids, because I hope to unleash a whole army of women who celebrate for No Real Reason...

...who celebrate the middle, just because It Is What It Is.

And we will not be held captive to regret.

Hell, no. 

Heaven, yes.  A thousand times, yes.



If you have not yet purchased the book by Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts:  A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are please stop here, and go get it.  (link above)  Go on.  I'll wait.

Did you get it?  Good.  It is a weapon in your Party Arsenal.  If you think of Ann's book as your very own .22 caliber handgun, then please also think of this blog as your very own roundhouse-dropkick-to-the-backside of regret. 



Oh, and also think of this blog as an offense to religious spirits everywhere.

I'd be honored if you did.

It is past time that we live free from regret.  This can only be done by living our lives in the light of the New Covenant.

This is the song my spirit sings over you...right now!




Your Spirit - Part II {In the Middle}

Welcome to 31 Days of Celebrating the Middle!


Regret is the culture of life after The Fall (in the story of Genesis), and regret is a chief characteristic of the middle.  Regret is woven into the warp and weft of the fabric of our days.  Mid-life is when we feel it most keenly - like the first twinges of pain in an arthritic knee we injured in our youth.

We feel the pangs of it in our marriage, our finances, our parenting,  our work.  No one...no, not one...reaches the middle with a perfect track record.  When we were very young, we had what seemed to be unlimited do-overs ahead of us.  Now, we realize there are no do-overs, there is only the grace of God to fall back on. 

This is why an Old Covenant understanding of God will strangle you, come middle age.  If you don't understand that the law was "given", but Grace "came"* - if you are looking at the cross and not  through the cross, you may not survive the regret.  You might just join the ranks of dry bones that populate most churches.

Gone, by and large, by age 45, is the elasticity of the teenager. You tend to not snap back from the big disappointments, much less from the big mistakes. If you stumble and fall at 50, you tend to stay stubbornly down, because either you will not change your mind, or you no longer care.

I believe the enemy of your soul knows this, and ruthlessly uses it to his advantage.

I will be 47 years old one month from today (November 3, 2013) -  so I don't have time to mess around getting this message out to you, so I am just going to say it, instead of segue:

If you are feeling an urgent need for "a change", that is exactly the time you must be still.

Perfectly. Still.

Don't you change one thing until the peace of God returns to you. You dwell in the land right where you are, and cultivate continuity. Faithfulness. Consistency. A holy "Sameness". You tough it out and work it out and clean it out until you are happy with your same life again. You do that until you are completely content with your life as God has given it.

That isn't an unhealthy way to cope with middle age feelings of frustration or meaninglessness, despite what shrinks or therapists are saying. Do not "take the plunge" and "do something entirely new" with your life.  Do not reinvent yourself.

The original you is still in there, and she is who God designed you to be.  Bring her into this season, healed and whole and intact.

When your life is being gnawed at by a sense of meaninglessness, when you are bored, don't run out and build a farm or start a flock of guineas or buy a few Nubian goats or build a mansion or get a new job or get a divorce or move to a new state or leave your church or start a ministry. I would not even add on to my house, if I were you.

Because it is a trap, nine times out of ten. It is usually, at least, a waste of time. What was begun out of discontent does not suddenly become the source of contentment. Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in God - nothing else.  (That's another Augustine quote, by the way.)

Get still, confront the meaninglessness, and wait for that death angel to pass over you. You are covered by the blood, and it will pass over. I repeat: Do. Not. React.
You don't create the real, God-kind of change. The God-kind of change creates you. It finds you. It discovers you. It changes you. Think of every Bible example you know. Real God-change found Sarah. It found Abraham. It found Moses. It found David. It found Peter on the fishing boat. It found a wee little man, that tax collector up in a tree. It found Paul on his horse, when he was still Saul.

Self perpetuated, self activated "change" leads to closed Edens, dead brothers, Ishmaels, silly towers - monuments to the flesh, the wrong king, the wrong decision, forsaken friends, betrayal, and liars dropping dead in God's house.

You are struggling with finding meaning or passion or purpose in the middle, not because you need a change, but rather because you have not infused your ordinary day with meaning.

Meaning is not something we "get out of life". Meaning is something we put into it. Like it or not, you are the one responsible to number your days.

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom. Ps. 90:12

The Hebrew word for "number" means to "name". It means to "assign meaning to what is".

Dominion is still your original purpose, and naming what lies before you is still your original job - just like the first man Adam. You can't take dominion where you are not, you can only take dominion from where you are.


Wisdom is in the sight of him who has understanding, But the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. Pr. 17:24

If you are wise, all the meaning you need in life is right in front of you. But the eyes of a fool are always on what isn't right in front of him - searching for meaning from the outside in. A fool is always in a position of needing to do something different for the sake of doing something different - as a means of self-medicating against the meaninglessness that the preacher in Ecclesiastes always spoke of...

"Vanity (Or meaninglessness) of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Eccl.

Friend, if you are in the grip of those middle ages of disappointment and a feeling that all is absurd, if you are drowning in depression or restlessness, I wish I could just sit with you and help you be still. If you are a woman, I wish I could hug you until the feelings pass. I wish I could "shush" you, dry your tears, and make you laugh and hope again.

I remember wishing that someone could do that for me. And some of the very ones I hoped could help, couldn't. And some of the very ones I thought would be there, left. And some of the very ones I trusted, were the ones least to be trusted, the ones that hurt me the most. And it was a wonderful, bountiful dealing for my soul. And it led me to learn to worship, leaning on my staff of truth, favoring that hip put out of joint by that wrestling match...such a long, long night of the soul.

I can't do much, but I can promise you, if you be still, you will know that He is God. And He will be exalted, yes, even in your life. Your soul is restless till it finds its rest in God - nothing else.

Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. Ps. 116:7

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Here are some of the best resources for understanding the doctrines of grace:
Grace Plus Nothing, by Jeff Harkin
Anything by Tullian Tchividjian (the grandson of the great Billy Graham)
* John chapter 1