Close

I deadlifted 150lbs today. A deadlift is where you pick the bar up off the floor until you're standing straight up with the weight hanging at the ends of your arms.

That would have been lifting my body weight, but I've gained weight since I started. So I should get to lifting body weight next week. Meh. I guess my next goal is 1.5 X bodyweight or ~225-235 lbs.

At the other end of the spectrum, my squat and press are at 37 lbs. I'm not even at the 45 lbs that makes up the standard empty bar. As far as the press goes, I'm not surprised since 1) it's an upper body movement and 2) I have a tear in my left shoulder socket.

The squat, however, is a total disappointment, especially since my deadlift is triple the squat. Well, it turns out that the hip flexors in my post-surgical hip are super weak, but I don't use them in everyday life so I never noticed. The hip flexors help bring the knee up toward the chest. Not a huge set of muscles but clearly the limiting factor in squating.

This kind of makes me wonder what other niggling little weaknesses I have in my life that preventing me from doing what I should be able to do.

The ups and downs

Lenten musing 7

In all of this we can sometimes get the mistaken impression of uninterrupted progress forward. Even the use of the term "stages" can unwittingly convey the idea of leaving one level for a higher one never to return again. I have not found it to be so. My experience has been much more fluid and undulating. One day I may be experiencing an intimate attention to Christ's presence that is well nigh amazing, and the next day I am in the "Slough of Despond." I can alternate between being meekly submissive and stubbornly rebellious with surprising speed. And I find many of the devotional masters record similar experiences. The stages are not hard and fast. There is a lot of movement back and forth, up and down.

But it is not a spiritual roller coaster either, because through all the motion there is a sense of progress and growth. The feeling of intermittent communion begins to give way to more sustained fellowship. Whereas before the hard thing was to seek his face, more and more the thing is to refrain from seeking him. Slowly and certainly, howbeit with many reversals, knowing God moves from obligation to delight. Although many times we do not pay attention to the holy Whisper, increasingly we do. We are less and less discouraged by our many wanderings in the wilderness because , having tasted the land of promise, we desire it more and more. As much as we may flirt with double-minded living, our real love is singleness of purpose and increasingly it is capturing our heart.
~Foster, Freedom of Simplicity

We're almost a month into Lent and it's been about 3 months since I returned to daily scripture reading. I am definitely feeling this undulating but progressive path toward a more Christ-centered life. I had so much trepidation about returning to regular scripture reading because I was worried that it would be an invitation for God to wreck my life, to twist me into something I didn't want to be. Instead, I find that I am being unfolded and freed to live less fearfully, less tortured, with more trust and grace. Not that last week wasn't a truly stressful week, not that I didn't feel I was regressing back to self-reliance, but I didn't regress as far and I was able to move forward in faith in a way I haven't in a long time.