Morning Weights and Prayers

Yikes! It's been a whole month since my last post! Midterms are finally over, and even though I've been really busy this last month, I have really missed connecting with you through this blog; so let me catch you up on a little bit of my life at the moment. Last week my team started a new block of exercises, and I am seriously beginning to doubt my ability to move.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning {bright and early} you'll find me in the Student-Athlete Strength Center (our fancy name for the weight room).

5:30 am rolls around and I'm up to go to practice and then to classes, but inwardly saying 'bother everything' - to everything. I'm pretty sure that you have all experienced this feeling at one point in your lives; that morning when you just want to ignore your alarm and do your best not to move so your body doesn't have the opportunity to remind you that you have 650 muscles and you are indeed mortal. If I'm honest, I brought this pain on myself. I have not lifted weights of any kind for several years, and now to keep up with my teammates, I am forcing my body to call upon strength that simply is not there. (I am getting stronger - very slowly - and who knows? I may even get my abs back.)

All of this whining to you is not for no reason, for morning weights and the pain and soreness that comes with it have reminded me of another area of my life that has the same results and consequences as strengthening and conditioning my muscles - prayers and my time with God. Talking with my Lord, who made me, knows me and adores me, sounds like a relatively easy thing to do - but for at least right now, it is not. When overwhelmed with midterms and the stress of getting everything I need to do done, my time and talks with God quickly crumbled.

Peter tells us in that we need to be clear minded and self-controlled so that we can pray (1 Peter 4:7). Praying is not easy, and just like with weight training, it needs to be slowly built up and maintained or else it becomes difficult to do and easy to skip. We need to purposefully and daily take time to spend with our Lord. And though this is difficult to do sometimes, what we are straining towards it so much better than a set of six pack abs; it is a strong and enduring relationship with our great and glorious God!