Finding Peace – 2

Surely we can all agree that war is a tragedy for all of us that live on this earth, but it is especially heart breaking for those young men and women and their families, who are putting their lives on the line day after day.  I’m not sure that there could ever be a good enough reason for this to be happening in the 21^st Century, but it is.  And it makes me feel a little bit better to know that these brave young people might be able to find some solace on the mat.

I often think about the soldiers in this picture, I don’t know who they are or how they are, but I do know that as I lay my head down in Child’s Pose, they may be doing the same thing.  And somehow, our consciousness is connecting and we are able to send good intentions via this connection—and I am able to say silently, thank you for being so brave, please stay safe.  And perhaps they are saying thank you for keeping us in your hearts.  I don’t know, but I like to think that this is so.

And I am so very grateful for the practice—and as I step into Warrior II, I make a conscious effort to be enthusiastically courageous in my relatively safe experience.

Ways to Lift Your Spirits – 2

Learn to Trust.  I used to have trouble seeing how gentleness and humility could lighten my load.  Instead, I thought I needed to learn confidence and courage.  Or time management and goal setting.  Or efficiency and effectiveness.  But God knows that the two greatest sources of stress in our lives are aggression and arrogance.  They make us think we can do more and control more than we really can.  Learning to be humble will take you to  deeper level of calm confidence than any time-management seminar ever could.  It comes from trusting God with the details of your life.

This is a process that takes time.  You didn’t develop your stressed-out, overloaded, hyper-drive lifestyle over-night, so you’re not going to change with one simple decision.  You will have to unlearn and replace old habits that cause you stress.  But God will give you the power to change if you trust Him.

America witnessed a remarkable example of Jesus’ formula for coping with stress a few months back in the case of Ashley Smith, which made headlines.  When faced with an incredibly stressful situation-being taken hostage at gunpoint by alleged rapist and murderer Brian Nichols-Ashley obeyed the words of Jesus, and likely ended a killing spree.  First she turned to Jesus for strength and urged her captor to do the same.  Next she explained that God’s purpose for Brian’s life was greater than his problems.  She calmly urged him to stop trying to control things and to surrender to God.  Finally, she served Brian breakfast in a gentle and humble an “angel from God”, and the crisis was defused.

It’s unlikely you’ll ever face the stress that Ashley did, but you’ll undoubtedly experience other sorts of stress this very week.  When you feel like giving up—look up!  And you’ll lighten up as well.