From Weak to Strong

I’ve been doing yoga on and off for the last 30 years but more “on” the last eleven years or so: a couple of days of week at the studio and stretching at home kind of “on.” So when I found myself pulling a muscle (proximal hamstring tendinopathy) just a few weeks ago, it sidelined me. I had a ballet background and knew how to stretch.

How could I overstretch a muscle I’d been stretching specifically for yoga for the last ten-plus years? It didn’t make sense until I sat down and thought about what had changed. I stopped running as much, I hadn’t done a whole lot of gluteal/ hamstring muscle-building over the last few years, and I (if I’m being honest) was getting older. In aging, it takes more effort to stay the same.

I felt useless and weak now. And because of this hamstring setback, I’ve had to stop going to yoga class to heal (I tend to overstretch even when I know I shouldn’t.) I’ve had to change my workout routine and essentially give up yoga for a time.

What’s remarkable though is in my weakness, this change propelled me to be a better version of myself. Sounds cliched, but it’s cliched for a reason… it’s true! Without pulling my hamstring, I wouldn’t be back to strengthening them and upping my running routine. Now that I’m weak – or found out the hard way that I’m weak - I can become strong.

If you’re dealing with a similar thing, and find yourself fully immersed in your level of weakness rather than strength (like you’d thought you had), take it as encouragement. God has to do this with all of us. Instead of viewing this as a setback, we can be strong in His strength, rather than our own.

I’m going to have to wait out my hamstring to heal and work on strengthening it, and maybe months from now, I can get back to yoga like I used to. It’s not what I want, but it’s what has to be. In my weakness, I will regain my strength.

Learning to do life not in my strength is challenging. I feel wholly inadequate. But it reminds me that in God’s strength, my only strength because that’s all I have now, I can be made whole again.

“Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, ‘I am strong!’” (Joel 3:10, NIV).

Finch Food for Thought: The more we rely on God for everything, the stronger we become.