My Restless Thoughts

Each year as spring pops up and reminds me of the joy of sunshine and frolicking outdoors, I am also always hit with feelings of wanderlust and restlessness.  I want to get out of my current rut and travel- to see the great world, to meet the amazing people, and to be more than the one I am right now.  

It is these restless thoughts that I have to push aside whenever I'm asked how I'm doing, how I'm liking my job, how our new house is.  Because everything is really good.  And yet...the restlessness.  I'm ashamed that in all this goodness I should feel restless and want more.  That I should feel inside me the echo of all the dreams that have not grown real.  That I should wonder what if...What if I had become a missionary?  What if I had stayed a teacher?  What if I had studied law/medicine/politics/acting?  

Spring, for some reason, reminds me of the many paths that I have not taken.  And my mind wriggles like a puppy wanting to sniff each one out and know it.  

The psalm I wrote about last time- psalm 139- is not only about being fearfully and wonderfully made...it also ends with these two verses:

"Search me out, O God,
and know my heart;
try me 
and know my restless thoughts.

Look well
whether there be 
any wickedness in me
and lead me in the way
that is everlasting."

Try me and know my restless thoughts.  Look well at me.  Know me.  

I've been reading Loni Collins Pratt's book Radical Hospitality lately and recently came across this passage:

[A waitress took the order of a couple and then turned to their 4 year old son]
"I want a hot dog," he started.  His parents barked in union "No hot dog!"  The mother scowled at the boy, who fell silent, and said, "Bring him the vegetable and grilled chicken, milk and..."

The waitress ignored the parents as she looked directly at the boy.  "What do you want on your hot dog?"

The amazed child said, "Lots of ketchup, and a pickle, too.  And could you bring some milk?"

"Coming up," she said and turned from the table, never even looking at the stunned parents.  The boy watched her depart with astonished delight and then said to his dismayed parents, "You know what?  She thinks I'm real!  She thinks I'm real!"

That's how you feel when someone listens to you: Real. (pg 365-366)

I think it is the feeling of realness before God that struck me in this psalm.  Search me... and know my restless thoughts.  This psalm reminds me that God listens and knows all that is in me.  All my joys and sorrows, my restless wonder and my longing to wander.  God sees the goodness and the wickedness, and still continues to lead me.  God knows who I am and all the paths I hold within me.  And God sees me, restlessness and all, and says "This is my beloved child."  And I am known.  And I am real.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made (or why I love Zumba)

It is easy in the winter to wrap up in a blanket and sit on the couch, hiding from the grey cloudy skies and filling my mind with Netflix and my stomach with snacks.  It is in this manner that I begin to critique my body: to push in the bulge of my stomach, to suck in my cheeks, to feel flab in my arms and legs.  Layers of leggings under my jeans and thick sweaters under my puffy coats do not help me to love my body in the winter time.  It becomes easy to dislike this grouping of arms and legs and tummy in which I live.

But!  This week, as the sun came out to remind us of spring, we finally joined the YWCA and I got to go to Zumba.  (For those of you who do not participate in Zumba, it is a dance aerobics class involving salsa, samba, cumbia, hip hop, and other various dance moves).  There is something really amazing about Zumba classes that allow women and men of various ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities to rock out.

For me, the awesome thing about Zumba is that shaking my hips and waving my arms to the sassy sounds of salsa reminds me how much I love my body.  It reminds me that my legs and arms and stomach and butt are the perfect size to break it down on the dance floor.  I can't help but smile at myself as I attempt a hip hop dive or perfect the body roll.  And, in loving my body and enjoying its movement, I am reminded of the one who made me.

Psalm 139:13-16

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15     My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

For I am fearfully and wonderfully made!  I am fearfully and wonderfully made by God, who created the world.  There is something magnificent in realizing that the one who knit the heavens, who sculpted the leaves of the trees, who planned out the deep layers of earth- also made me.  Made this body for me to inhabit.  And calls this body good.  

And as I remember the one who made my body, my dance becomes a form of worship and of honoring my Creator.  

Of course, not everyone loves Zumba.  Some people don't like to dance, some people don't have bodies that let them dance.  

And it can be hard to love our bodies- because of the media images of more perfect bodies, because of aches and pains that don't let our bodies work like they use to, because we used to be thinner or curvier or taller or faster, because of injuries or illnesses that leave us feeling weak.

But we all have bodies and all of our bodies were made by God.  So what do you love about your body?  Do you love the way that your skin feels under the glow of the warm sun or the soft feel of a fuzzy sweater?  Do you love the touch of a child's hand in your own?  Do you love the way your fingers fly along piano keys or the way your body reverberates with a drum?  Do you love the way your body stretches and moves to run or swim or dance?  

What about your body and your senses makes you smile?

Then do that!  And smile as you enjoy the body that God fearfully and wonderfully made for you.