The End of the Beam

When we were younger and in the gym, we would line up on the balance beam three or four per beam, and start our warm ups. Our arms were either stretched high or wide, walking on our tiptoes, doing kicks, dips, leaps, jumps, turns you name it and we did it.

Oddly enough as gymnasts we found ourselves staring at each other’s feet or butts. Our chins were up, but our eyes were down. Focusing on the beam. We were always told to look at our partner’s feet…

Fast forward a few years and compulsory routines are done. There are typically five minute warm ups and then routines, one on each beam was started. By this time you are no longer looking at your partner’s feet, you are staring at the end of the beam. I don’t remember the science behind it, but Coach Casey always explained it when she caught me falling because I wasn’t looking at the beam.

The part that I do remember when she explained it is that as our body is spinning, jumping, moving through the air on four inches our brain is also moving. Our balance is connected to where our brain thinks that we are. So as I understand it, if we are jumping and spinning and we have no direction as to where the landing for the beam and where the landing for the floor is, our bodies won’t connect the beam and the floor as two separate objects instead it will think that it is one object. However, staring at the end of the beam is one way to help with that balance. Since it is an even surface, and you can clearly see the line where the beam ends, it is easy for the brain to configure that the beam is not the floor. If that made any sense.

If you didn’t take anything away from that, just know that gymnasts typically stare at the end of the beam to maintain their balance. It’s like when dancers spot a point on the wall to keep them from getting dizzy; it’s so that our brain knows where we are in relation to the floor, the beam and the space around us.

That being said, the next stage of the gymnastics career is typically high school gymnastics. If you have a smaller team and a big gym, you get pretty used to having your own beam to warm up on. Nobody is in the way of the end of your beam.

Then you get to college club gymnastics where the chances of you being on the same beam as someone else is very slim.

So this leads to my story.

Katie and I have the same favorite beam, so a couple of weeks ago, Katie hopped up on the beam with me and started warming up. Her feet were in the way of my view, and my feet were in the way of her view.

We were wobbling all over the beam.

That’s when I realized, that it isn’t until someone is standing in your way that you realize how much your balance depends on staring at the end of the beam.

At first when I thought this through, I thought, “wow, that’s really profound! I’m going to use this.”

But I didn’t know what for, or how I was supposed to apply this to my life.

Until now.

Over the summer, I was typically always on a Jesus high and it was great. I’m not saying that it was fine and dandy every day, I had my moments. I had a few times when I finally just broke down and cried, but I felt like my relationship with God was constantly evolving into a process.

Although I have not gone back into my habits of skipping church while at school, I still have had many moments of just wondering where God is or what he is doing.

Coming back to school, I knew that I was supposed to be here. I told Katie everything, and they spiraled out of control very quickly. My plan didn’t… well… her plan didn’t go well because I ended up finding out about her plan. It was a mess, and at first I thought it was never what God intended. I told Katie that it wasn’t a good time, but she didn’t believe me.

From there my relationship with God and my Jesus high that lasted most of the summer drained a little bit. I started to think that she was right and I was wrong. But I was wrong about thinking that she was right.

If you had read any previous posts, you would know that I went to the Chi Alpha Fall Retreat for Ohio and a God worked in so many ways. God moved, and my faith… I don’t know what to say about it. It wasn’t restored… but it was just heightened. I went back and told my Mom what happened and her mouth just dropped. Suddenly she started to be on my side of things, I told Katie what happened and she started believing me and my testimony and all I had to say about it.

But you know… college gets in the way. It’s not that I continued to doubt, I knew that God told me directly it’s a time of transition and waiting. Waiting on what? I’m not sure. Transitioning into what? Very good question.

All I know is I am supposed to wait.

In the process, God also told me very clearly to back off of a couple of friendships. He also told me to back off of as much social media as I could, make things private, make things unsearchable, and rarely get on them (except for my creative writing project). Social media was becoming an awful thing for my mental health, and my relationship with facebook was almost abusive.

So I backed off.

He was right, I was wrong. I listened.

But if you read my November post, things started to blow up in our faces, and they blew up fast. Everyone was getting hurt; nobody knew what they wanted or what they were doing. Moves and counter moves. I was playing psychologist with everyone, and in the end I needed someone to play psychologist on me.

I found myself helping Katie with her relationships and the young men she was turning down and hurting. I was comforting Becca with her failed relationship with Ethan, and trying to give her advice that did not send her running back to Tinder (that girl has a problem). In the meantime, I was turning down young men because there was a big red flag that hung in the air every time and STOP was written on it.

I lived up to the promise that I made to Katie, I went to get coffee with a young man.

It was actually interesting. My mother’s first reaction was, “appeasing yourself?” That’s what I thought too Mom. Actually it was more like appeasing Katie. At first it was exciting, a guy walked up to me, got nervous, stumbled through his words and then asked me for coffee, it was cute and made me feel better. But I knew that Mom was right. I couldn’t sit back and collect confidence from him and then break it off because I know that it was not going to go anywhere.

Anyway, after turning down these young men, and watching my friends hurt, and realize that I was hurting as well… I broke down.

That’s when I thought about my balance beam. I felt like God just lifted my chin and said, “hey, I want to spend time with you, and more time than usual.”

So I got into the word, and I mean really into it. I studied it, and flipped through different parts of the bible, read Psalms and circled every time it said the word “trust” or “rely upon.” I read parts of Lady In Waiting, and I just spent time with the Lord.

That’s when I realized, someone was warming up with me on my beam, and instead of being able to focus on the end of the beam, I was focusing on their feet… which were moving.

If you don’t get the analogy, our relationship with God is like practicing by yourself. Your view of the end of the beam is perfect, so typically (at least during warm ups) your likelihood of wobbling, let alone falling is very slim.

However, your human worries, doubts, failures, guilt, shame, the view and advice of the world. That is the person who is warming up with you on the beam.

I cannot express how easy it is to somehow believe in the promises, and lies of the world. It is easy to forget that there is a God out there that died for you, and loves you, no matter what (Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present for the future, nor any powers. Neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”)

When it doesn’t seem like God’s plan is coming together, or you don’t see him working in your life… it can be easy to just think about all the reasons he would have abandoned you, or fall into the worldly things.

In gymnastics terms, it can be very easy to not see the end of the beam when you are standing at it. It is also very easy to just let someone else hop up on the beam with you so that they can warm up as well.

Both hinder your view from the end of the beam, both impair your balance. Therefore you start to stumble, fall and lose your balance.

But the great thing I have noticed about the beam is that:

1.)  Even if you willingly jump off the beam… which means you willingly abandon your relationship with God…

2.)  Even if you split the beam which is where your feet miss the beam, but one leg goes on each side of the beam on the fall down. This kind of fall leaves scars, and scrapes. In correspondence with your relationship with God, it is typically when you failed to keep your eyes on your relationship with God. You had a relationship with him, but followed your own plans and therefore you stumbled a little bit in your walk. That leaves painful scars…

3.)  Even if you legitimately fall, you had your eyes on end of the beam, but your body was not tight enough to stay on the beam. Meaning, you had your eyes on your relationship with God, and you really wanted it, but not enough to put your life back on track to follow him. (Like the rich young ruler).

Even if… somehow some way, willingly, unintentionally… whatever reason.

Even if you end up on the floor, and not on the beam…

There is ALWAYS the option to get back up on the beam.

And you can always direct your partner (whom is standing in your way) in the direction of her own beam as well…

Another interesting thing about your partner finding their own beam… is that when they start to practice on the same beam over and over again, it suddenly becomes their favorite beam. They claim it, and they don’t want to be on your beam anymore.

Sometimes, you will cross paths, and want to switch it up a bit by practicing on each others beams (what I would like to think as fellowship, or life groups). You will also notice that switching up beams can be helpful for meets when the pressure is high, but when you are warming up and alone, you go back to your own beam and spend time with it, one on one.

And you always keep your eyes focus the end of the beam to maintain your balance.