Sunday School and Body Combat?! What a Combination!

Like I said on a previous post, life is really busy for us right now.

But life is also really enjoyable when I am in the right frame of mind to see that.

Yesterday, I volunteered in my church's preschool class.

At first, it felt like teaching the little kids at church was just going to be one more thing I had to do this weekend.

But then I felt God's Spirit put a picture in my head and say something to my heart about it.

I saw myself with my arms of full of various things, all good things, but my arms were really full and I was struggling to keep a hold of everything.

Then God was holding something else out for me to take and the idea of taking hold of anything else would mean I would have to stop and to rearrange everything in my arms. I would be lucky not to drop anything. 

I saw myself hesitate and resist taking the next thing that God was offering me. Then I saw myself concede, shift things around, and offer out an empty hand.

He's God. I am compelled to take what He offers, whatever it is.

In the picture in my head, I saw that once I finally conceded and agreed to take hold of the new thing, I felt joy. The joy traveled up the hand holding the new thing and filled my whole body with joy, so much joy that it radiated around me and covered everything I was holding in my arms.

I felt like the Spirit of God said, "The thing you didn't want is what will bring you great joy."

Immediately, I felt so much happiness and excitement over the prospect of teaching the kids that morning. I was in the car getting ready to drive to church to teach the kids when this happened.  I really couldn't wait to get there. 

And that's how I felt the entire time I spent teaching the kids yesterday. I had so much joy.

I've been reading a lot of C.S. Lewis this year. (It was my goal to read everything he ever wrote this year and I have done pretty well. But it will take some time to read every single thing that Lewis wrote because he wrote a lot.)

It might not seem related, but his writings, fiction and non-fiction, have so strengthened my faith and my reason that I found it really easy to teach the kids the Bible story in a passionate, convincing way.

I had no doubts about the story, that God exists, that He is outside this physical world, that He can, and sometimes does work miracles, that the Bible is a collection of some of the greatest miracles previous generations of men and women have experienced and have collected and written down for us to know about, wonder over, worship, and glorify God for. 

The story that God has told, that God is telling, that He will keep telling forever is the most amazing story of all stories (that we know about). All the other epics we love so much, as great as they are, are just shadows of this truest, most epic of all adventures that God has brought about in this space and time He created and then invaded through the person of Jesus Christ.

I think that's why we humans love stories and movies and books and plays so much. They reveal the deeper truths we know exist behind the curtain of our reality.

It's funny to me, now, that I thought the picture in my head was just about teaching the kids' Sunday School class.

But I also signed up for Body Combat training yesterday, something new to me, something that will be very challenging on top of everything else I am already doing.  

But, like the picture in my head showed me,  I believe this new thing I will bring me great joy. 

I wasn't planning to get another Les Mills certification anytime soon, but the opportunity to teach Body Combat has come up and there is a training this month, so it appears as if it is meant to be, as if it is an opportunity being held out for me to take...

or not take...

But I will take it.    

I was recently certified in Bodypump, a weight lifting program by Les Mills and I just love teaching that class.

Body Combat is a mixed martial arts exercise program. And I have to say that punching and kicking and coaching and sweating buckets and getting tough, is not what this Sunday School teaching mother of three planned.

The idea is comedic to me.

But as I take hold of the vision of teaching Body Combat someday, if I do well enough, I realize that it will be really fun and it will be something that brings me great joy.

It's going to be challenging, no doubt, to learn what I need to learn over the next weeks and months, and to do it all while I continue to do everything else I am already doing besides, but I am finding myself really excited about it.

Sunday School teaching and Les Mills Combat training- these are on two opposite ends of the spectrum!

But the Lord who created this world and who works in my life has a great sense of balance and the greatest sense of humor, no doubt.