Giving it Up and Living it Up

The 60 day yoga challenge is over.  For me.  I made it 35 days (30 classes in 35 days).  And I'm finished.  For now.  Between the knee pain, new baby, toddler, short nights, long days, and sharing a car... I think I need to save this challenge for a different time.  Any time you are crying in yoga class, you know something is not right.  Granted... if it's a 105 F deg room and a 90 minute class, it doesn't seem totally wrong to be crying.

It makes me sad to have to stop the challenge, but it's too much right now.  And although I can't remember ever quitting anything before (or maybe especially because of that fact), I know it's for the best.

The problem is this.  I want to define myself by God's unfailing love for me.  He has proven Himself.  But I still tend to define myself by other things: my determination... my strength... my ability to plan ahead... my arts-and-craftiness... my hobbies-turned-obsessions.  So stopping the challenge at the half-way point felt threatening to me--to my very identity.  I am not a quitter.

How sad--that God himself came down as a man to set me free from myself, from my driven-ness, and yet the decision to let that little piece of my identity go--that trivial little piece--was so hard for me.  It didn't (and doesn't) feel trivial at all.  Reflecting on it, this hymn came to mind and keeps playing in my head.     

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine--
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.

Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
watching and waiting, looking above,
filled with his goodness, lost in his love.

And so I am resting now.  Remembering I have a newborn to cuddle and a toddler to play with... and a husband to be thankful for... and a God to whom I am--and will be--eternally grateful.