Wisdom I learned in Yoga today

So we were doing this pose. It is called table or sitting chair or something.

You stand and lift one leg and cross it over the other knee. Then you bring your hands into a praying position. And then you kind of squat.

It's a balancing exercise.

The thing is, if you look around, you will fall off balance. You have to keep your eye on one thing, taking steady breaths and just focus on what you're doing.

But another key to fully staying balanced is to not think about anything else. Because if your mind wanders, so will your balance.

Welcome to my life. And thank you, my sweet Jesus for giving me a visual for what you need me to do right now.

Focus. On HIM.

Don't look anywhere else. Don't think about anything else.

Don't worry. Don't analyze. Don't bargain. Don't dwell. Don't think on things that were or things that will be.

Think about Him. Focus on where I am. Breathe.

Because here's the thing...we are human. We mess up. And fall down. And hopefully get back up.

I feel like I've never done that so much and so often as I have in these last few months. Weeks. Days. Literally every day I have to receive my God's new mercies.

I always feel like I do something wrong. Like I can never get anything right. I focus a lot on my shortcomings. And each day seems to bring light to something else wrong that I've done. Or each day I do something wrong.

It is a decision I have to make to stand up and dust myself off.

Sometimes I wish that other people didn't have to experience this. That my wrong doing didn't have to involve messing up something else that is good. Or setting something back.

I tend to be good at setting things back when they're on the way to good.

Perhaps it would be easier if I did all this on another continent so the people I loved the most wouldn't have to experience it. And wouldn't need the extra dose of strength from God to handle this with me.

That is one of the most humiliating things about it all.

I read this in a book once and it rocked my world.

Psalm 23:4 starts with saying:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...."

It doesn't say:

"Even though I sit and ponder through the valley of the shadow of death...."

It doesn't say:

"Even though I think through the valley of the shadow of death...."

It doesn't say:

"Even though I wallow in the valley of the shadow of death...."

It doesn't say:

"Even though I lay down in the valley of the shadow of death...."

It says "Even though I WALK..."

Like I said before in an earlier post, one day my walking may become like a dance. With each day I continue to be rebuilt.

Sometimes all I can do is cling to the old as the chisel is raised to come down again.

I don't like letting go. I don't want to. And I honestly don't know how to try.

But it's a process. And I'm not ok with just sitting down. No more wallow.

So I walk. With a mind focused on the One that matters. My eyes still stray. My thoughts get more jumbled and rattle my mind more than I know how to deal with sometimes.

I just pray my God doesn't get tired of my imperfect soul.

I want to be so good. Better than I have been. Please world, give me grace as I keep trying.

I'm fighting as hard as I know how. And like I said, I'm still learning to balance.

So many things.