"Was It Really Meant to Be?"

I’m not sure why when someone says, “Everything happens for a reason”, or “It was meant to be”, I feel like I need some Mylanta. Is it because the people who say that read horoscopes or forward emails with the letters J-E-S-U-S dancing across the computer screen? Is it because it’s brother to things like, “He’s in a better place now”, and “It’ll turn out for the best”, or “It’s only because God has something better planned”?

In clumsy attempts to comfort, I’m guilty, too, of pulling out trite comments. That need to say something, to weigh in like one of Job’s counselors, to hurriedly slap a Bandaid on a ragged and ugly wound, makes us say things that are at best sentimental if not downright untrue.

Remarks like that make me feel this vague sadness, much like the way I feel when I hear the word “devotional”, or see “Precious Moments” in gift shops, or peruse the Christian fiction in our church library. It’s that sense of quasi-religiousity, of there being the suggestion of something holy and good, but it’s wafer-thin, worn-out, cheaply or poorly wrought.

Comments said so nonchalantly, automatically, bother me because I believe that world views and eternal destinies hinge on the veracity of these statements. Does everything happen for a reason? Calvinists, Muslims, Hindus, and Darwinists can all say yes to that, and that’s why the statement is irksome. It pretends to be something when it’s nothing, but then again it could be something really big, because it could actually be true.

It’s just that these things are said so easily and so often that they’ve become lingo, and as such do more harm than good, because they’re applied to situations that beg for real answers, not platitudes. And I think that platitudes have been churned out by demons below for the purpose of keeping us from actually thinking. (Yes, I’ve just re-read Screwtape Letters.)

We want to whisk the pain away, paint a rosy future, answer the questions swiftly before they have a chance to penetrate, explain life without really explaining it. We give a little nod to the gods, or fate, or old-time religion, so that we don’t have to face the one God, who, as God, cannot be contained, made-to-order, tamed.

The Corset Reconsidered

Several months ago I had the wild idea to wear a corset. Prompted by feeling lumpish and then spurred on by the hope of lofty insights and a potential waistline, I did indeed wear a corset for a month.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve done something with full assurance that it was perfectly reasonable, perhaps even brilliant, only to later find myself mystified if not mortified by my earlier enthusiasm and certitude.

I can’t even bring myself to go back and read the corset posts; doing so might cause me to delete the entire blog and swear off writing forever.

So, why do I bring it up? Because I did learn something from my corset that relates to my latest phase, which I hope isn’t really a phase, but with me one never knows. I won’t ask my friends and family if they think this is just my latest fad because I hate hearing “Duh!” It’s my earnest desire that this isn’t like that, but a solid and lasting new direction.

My husband had been prodding me to exercise because he has been working out and loving it. I had a month off from work, an eager partner in my daughter Natalie, and Jupiter must have been aligned with Mars, so, for the past 6 weeks I’ve exercised more and harder than I have in many, many years.

A corset will not make you fit. It will not keep you from overeating. (My research showed that some personality types actually eat more because of the discomfort, actually growling at the corset as they consume cookies and snacks they don’t even want just out of spite. “This blasted thing isn’t going to stop me from eating!!”)

The problem with the corset is that it was on the outside pressing in. Like laws and rules, it was a reminder. But in the same way that speed signs don’t stop speeders, the corset didn’t accomplish anything internal, intrinsic. For me, it was a gimmick, a diversion, and as such, destined to fail.

Ah, but exercise! Hearty, blood-pumping, sweaty exercise that demands much of long-unused muscles. Focused work on stretching, strengthening. Coaching by trained leaders who call forth that extra push you didn’t know you had. The comraderie of working out with a group, of doing more than you’d ever do alone. Kick-boxing next to a 70 year old man. Cycling with middle-aged women with thick middles who are giving it all they can.

The instructors keep talking about “The Core”, the very area of my body the corset was supposed to help. But, of course, pressure from the outside doesn’t strengthen muscles. Nor does it help much to just try to practice good posture. Although I’d remind myself time and again to hold my stomach in, sit up straight, I could never keep it up. My natural physical state was simply not strong enough.

In this, too, I see analogies to life. Practicing good posture apart from making the muscles strong by hard work is superficial. It’s easier to wash the outside of the cup, to make a few adjustments so we appear a certain way, but like rouge on the wrinkled skin of an old lady, the attempts to change something externally can't belie the inner reality.

And so, after these weeks of concerted effort to “make my arms strong” (Prov. 31), by Cycling, Pilates, Yoga, and Kick-boxing, I’m delighted with how my mind and body are being challenged and in the rapid improvement I’ve seen.

I attribute my success to three things: First, this 50 year old body can do much more than I knew. God has created muscles that respond to work, and I’ve been amazed at how “fearfully and wonderfully made” our bodies really are.

Second, I know that I wouldn’t have this momentum, wouldn’t have improved so quickly, if I hadn’t jumped into this full force, exercising at least 5 times a week for the first month. Soldiers need boot camp. Smokers need to quit cold turkey. People are more likely to succeed when doing something really hard as opposed to just dabbling. I always made my highest grades in my toughest classes.

Third, being in classes with other people at varying fitness levels, led by excellent instructors, has helped me work harder and better than I ever would alone. It’s axiomatic. It’s Biblical. It works.