Rest for the Weary

I'm going to be honest. I'm a little cranky this morning. I've been having problems with my neighbor's dog. It barked incessantly from the time I got home at 9:30 pm until I eventually fell asleep with a pillow held over my head around midnight. Turns out that even though it's a violation of the local noise ordinance, the police can't charge anyone with anything if no one's home to sign for the violation. So that meant I went to bed last night listening to the soothing sound of a large dog barking.

I have to make a confession. I haven't done any type of physical activity since Sunday. That includes my PT. I've been tired and my knee's been hurting. I took Abby (my dog) for a long walk on Sunday morning after church, and my knee hurt all day afterwards. So I decided to take a little break, give my knee some rest, and diligently applied ice. It's still a little achey, but the pain has dissipated significantly. I have a feeling that it's a result of the inclines and declines, as small as they are. My neighborhood is not exactly flat, and the slopes exacerbate any problems. So for right now it looks like I'm sticking to tracks and the treadmill which means Abigail doesn't get to go on anymore long walks for the time being.

I'm planning on heading to the gym tonight after work. I really, really need to get back into a regular PT and strength-training routine. I feel okay about taking a few days off. I was getting frustrated by not seeing the results and my schedule was wearing on me. It's tough to get up at 4:30 am, especially when the neighbor's dog is keeping me up well past my normal bedtime. But I can't let that become a habit. I've been struggling with my knee problems for too long to give up now. Six months, in fact. I haven't been able to run since September 2010.

A few weeks ago, one of my Bible Study Fellowship questions asked about an area in your life where you were feeling exhausted by trying to control a situation. For me, this is it. I'm tired of getting up early, of being stuck in a gym instead of pounding the pavement, of feeling self-conscious about spending 45 minutes on a floor mat in the back of the fitness center at the Y, of being sore, of not being able to function normally. I'm tired of the monotony and tediousness of my PT.

The solution? Don't try to control the situation - trust God with it. I can't control when my body will be healed, or even if it will be healed. All I can do is continue to do the PT and trust God with the outcome. I'm still going to be tired, and I'm still going to get frustrated from time to time, but I have the source of infinite power to draw strength from. When my energy is depleted, I can rest in the arms of a loving God who loves me unconditionally and wants the best for me. All of me. Even my knee.

Balancing Act

Balance. It's something we learn as tiny babies. First we learn to sit up without falling over. Then we learn to stand. Then walking. We learn to jump, to stand on one foot, to hop, skip, lean forward or side to side, and we learn to run. All of these activities require balance. It should be something that is second nature to each of us.

Eventually, we learn to understand that balance is integral to stability. And not just in a physical sense. We have to learn to balance work and play, extracurricular activities, time with ourselves and time with others. We have to learn to balance priorities.

I learned an important lesson last week in physical therapy - my balance was off. I had no idea. I was doing what seemed like a simple exercise when Wanda pointed out that I was leaning back - I thought I was leaning forward. Then my very generous friend Mark agreed to help me get started lifting weights at the Y. He realized my left shoulder was several inches higher than my right; when he corrected me, I felt like I was literally leaning to the left.

This was an important realization. Think about it - if my balance is off just standing up which puts extra strain on certain areas, think about the strain that I was putting on my body when I was running 30 and 40 miles per week. When runners start putting in long runs of 15 miles or so, it's pretty typical for fatigue to set in and for their form to collapse. This happens when the core weakens. Well, I was never actually using my core to effectively support myself, which means for the entire distance of my runs, I was overly reliant on the wrong muscles.

So now an integral part of my therapy is focused on improving the strength of my core muscles. Some of the exercises I like, some of them I don't, but before I can run again, I need to learn to sit, stand, and walk correctly. I need to relearn how to balance correctly - a lesson I learned for the first time about 30 years ago. That's a lot of retraining!

This got me thinking about other areas of my life, though. Are my priorities in balance? How about the way I spend my time? What I think about? Where I place my trust? My emotional stability?

I'm learning to rebalance physically, but I don't want to waste the momentum I have right now to miss the opportunity to rebalance emotionally, spiritually, and mentally as well. I'm pretty open about my struggles, but I'm not always good about taking the necessary steps to work through my weaknesses. I know that I struggle with staying motivated to eat well, but I continue to focus my efforts on "powering through it" instead of addressing the underlying reasons why. Maybe it's because my balance is off and I'm relying on the wrong spiritual and emotional muscles. As I learned, I can get away with being off balance in the short-term, but it leads to major complications in the long-term.

Physically, I need to focus on strengthening my core. I need to strengthen my spiritual core, too.

Why me?

It's a simple question, but it gets asked often, usually when we're faced with some sort of challenge or difficult situation that we don't want to deal with. We wonder, "Why did this happen to me?" When I hear someone use this phrase, there's usually an implication that it should have happened to someone else.

Well, I don't generally think that way. When I ask "Why me?" it's usually to examine my own behavior, motives, or actions to determine what I may have done that resulted in the less than ideal outcome. Getting injured led to a lot of these questions.

I hope my friends all know that my faith is very important to me. I strive and struggle to be a woman of God, but like everyone else in this world, I am a flawed being and often fall short. Whenever adversity strikes, my tendency is to go back and examine my life to determine whether it was actually caused by something I did. Did I get injured because I was spending too much of my time focusing on running and not using that time to spend with God? Was I taking too much credit for my meager accomplishments instead of turning that towards God? Was I taking time away from something else God wanted me to be doing instead? Was God using this to get my attention?

Honestly, I don't know the answers to those questions. But I also don't think those are the right questions to ask. My injury definitely was caused by something I did, at least in a physical sense. But the more important question to ask is "What am I going to do about it now?"

I'm a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. My favorite quote from the Lord of the Rings is when Frodo is talking to Gandalf. Frodo has taken possession of the ring of power and is realizing that he has a very difficult task before him. Frodo tells Gandolf that he wishes the ring had never come to him. Gandalf responds by saying, "So do all who live to face such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

So what am I going to do about the time that has been given to me? I'm going to learn and grow from it. I'm going to be stronger, smarter, healthier, and more well-rounded. I'm going to trust God to heal my body, and turn that glory back to Him. I'm going to thank God every time I'm able to take a step without pain, everytime I feel my legs shaking after a grueling physical therapy session, every time I even consider hitting the snooze button instead of getting up for my morning work out. I'm going to thank God for the ability to use my body again.

I'm going to give up on the "why me" and focus on the "what now."