Shed the Dread

Free Yoga in the Park!
Thursday night, 7/11, 7p-8p

(Thundercloud Park, just east of the Red Rocks Arvada Campus. Rain out, we'll move inside.)
Please bring friends, a mat, a towel, water, and maybe bug spray.


Psalm 54:4 – Surely God is my help; the LORD is the one who sustains me.


This winter I was skiing along and realized my shoulders were hunched up into my ears.  “Pull back, over my hips” I kept telling myself.  Before I could make a few more turns, it would notice it again.  “down and back, shoulders...relax!” as I coached myself down to the Sunnyside lift.  This was my first physical hint that something was causing me to cave inward.  I later witnessed myself walking in such a way that I was surging my forehead first, rather than moving through space with my heart in front of my chest.  While working at my stand up desk I fell into the same concave posture.  What was going on?   

Can I be open with you about something?  For the past 3 years I have been in a place of worldly stress and pressure like I haven’t felt before.  Can you relate?  I dread certain family and friend relationships, trying work dealings, political divides, wondering where my next paycheck is coming from, and facing my bed at night knowing that when I shut off the light my monkey mind starts racing.  I have felt difficulties pushing in around me.  I don’t say these things to garner sympathy nor to put added weight into your backpack, but, merely to shed much needed light on self perceived darkness. What does this tell me?  It’s time for a break through and to return my thoughts to the knowing that God provides.  This urge of perpetual striving needs to drain out of my life like the passing of water moving downstream.

In solidarity, perhaps you are walking through a similar valley with me.  Or not; you may be experiencing a time of prosperity, ease and mountaintop living.  It's the rollercoaster of ups and downs.  Black-white, right-left, male-female, winter-summer, weep-laugh; That’s life, right?  The Beatles phrased it best when they sang let it be.

What came to me is that our body will signal when it's maligned.  Injury to the physical, spiritual and emotional is repairable when we commit to practicing peace:

1.  Acknowledge what’s going on and put it into a truth perspective.   I praise God as I know He is with me. I praise God for I am convinced that He is with you also.  We know by His Word that He is working all things for his good and this life is just a mist.  Our eyes are fixed and laser focused on our heavenly home, and we know the fantastic ending to our story.  Jesus wins and so do we!  What a relief!
2. Take time with God in prayer to ask for help with gratitude for the good, the bad and the ugly.  Recite Bible verses that you have committed to memory.
3. Enlist your support system and plug into the people you trust.  Growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum although (admittedly my first response is to figure things out on my own).  We need each other.
4. Make physical activity a priority for the day.  Whether it’s an upright walk around the block, some weight lifting, hard cardio or a moving meditation on a yoga mat, move some energy.
5. DO something for someone else.  Get our of a self- focused situation.  Pull some noxious weeds in your favorite open space, write a letter of encouragement, bring a meal to someone or serve for an hour at your favorite ministry.

There’s no guarantee the valley of darkness will end in this life but since we know the happy ending of heaven forever, shed the dread! The one thing we can control is keeping the temple of the Holy Spirit healthy.  Don’t give up.  Don’t despair.  God is our victor and He is fighting for us.  God always has, does and will provide and He makes a way.

Join us this week on Thursday 7pm at Red Rocks Church Arvada for the Shed The Dread Beginner Yoga Flow.  Leave your worldly concerns for 60 minutes as we work out the issues in our tissues with trembling. Meet outside at Thundercloud park for fellowship, prayer and movement on our yoga mats.  Bring a water bottle. The rain out plan is to practice inside the church.

Be encouraged!

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