Groundhog Day

       I wrestle, with myself. Everything I am and everything I become is on my shoulders. It is exhausting, invigorating, eye-opening, refreshing, and frightening. I attempt to look at today with no blame, hiding, or denial. How fascinating to face... me. 

 

     From time to time, my husband and I participate in Wii boxing. After just a few minutes of active sparring with the animated opponent, huffing and puffing begins as does upper body exercise. We too often lose to the TV, but that is secondary... we win with an excellent exercise workout.

      The idea of losing and winning have been on my mind lately. I think about The Biggest Loser, where the person who loses the most weight actually ends up winning the prize. In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character wrestles. He has unfinished business in the character development department. He repeatedly experiences a particularly annoying and exasperating Groundhog Day. He finally uses the unstoppable day(s) for self-improvement... and he loses, his gritty ego... to win a special gift, the girl of his dreams.

      Unfinished business and losing can be nagging, like an untied shoelace (especially when I'm exercising), or photos with visibly disheveled hair, or a family photo with just one family member missing ... I want to tie shoelaces, comb disheveled hair, and photo shop into a picture the missing family member. Despite having thought A LOT about life, I have unfinished business and questions... but there are forever-buried final memories and mysteries, with clues, coincidences, as well as pictures of tire tracks and reactive body twitches at the arrival of one key person. But otherwise, that's it. I wonder... I wrestle and hate to surrender, give up, and succumb to defeat. It feels so like I have lost, like I have seen my own shadow to experience 6 more weeks of winter.

     Jacob in the Bible gives a palatable perspective that helps me begin to surrender and squelch my striving to answer unanswerable questions... to give up. Strategist Jacob decides that rather than continuing to wrestle with his brother and father-in-law (like he had been successfully doing for years), he would face a more formidable opponent, battling for the heavy-weight championship of the centuries. He spends an entire night wrestling with what he thinks is an angel. Jacob notices his new opponent's strength, and that He acts more like a sparring partner. In the morning, Jacob discovers that he was actually wrestling with God and finally gives in. He demands a blessing and God gives him one.

      I am learning an admirable aspect of  *the FOREVER Substance Behind the Shadows*: He allows me to spar with Him and He NEVER tires. He's tough enough to handle my insatiable appetite for questions, and He knows me better than I know myself. I am wearing down, and I am acquiescing to the phrases: "I give" and "I surrender."