Muscle Memory

And just like that, she puts pen to paper again - or finger to keyboard, whatever era you’re from!

I’ve just had my second baby, yup - you read that correctly. Baby number 2. A girl. My little princess. A live dress up dolly - ha ha! No wonder I’ve been AWOL with my writing and podcast - I’m raising 2 under twos. I must confess, this learning curve has not been as steep as the one when I had just become a mother. Maybe now I’m a little less wet behind the ears and more versed in things such as sleep patterns, breast feeding patterns and even poo colour LOL. However, we won’t dwell on that today - this post is for everyone. Not just mums.

Post pregnancy/birth exercise has begun. I haven't quite gotten to the stage of consistent daily exercise, but I’m getting there averaging perhaps 4 days a week home exercise. As I get back into a routine, I cannot help but reminisce on the days before I had both of my children, circa Feb/March 2020 (mind blowing I know!!) when I was heavily into the exercise and was seeing actual results. Frequenting the gym each morning at 4:50am to get it out the way and get that much needed rush of adrenaline and endorphins for my day - can you tell I miss it a little? I’m sure those days will come back around soon enough. Anyway here is my point; at that time, it took my body so long to get used to exercise and for my muscles to become acclimated to being ‘stretched’. I remember wondering if I’d ever be able to raise the amount I lifted in weights or if I would be the “type” that could run on a treadmill (yes, there is a type!) and not just brisk walk. There were times I was tempted to throw in the towel, figuratively and literally - but eventually my body got the memo. I felt great. Then I found out I was pregnant with baby number 1 and I thought “Dammit, that's my hot girl summer gone…I’ll have to start from scratch after I have my baby”. Then before I knew it, baby number 2 was on the way and I thought…”Bunn it, my hopes of a decent body are dashed…”. How wrong I was.

Here’s the punchline. My fear was this; that I needed to start all over again. That my pre-pregnancy energy levels would never return and that my body wouldn’t “remember” exercise. Well, guess what? My body has remembered. Now I’ve started exercising again, it has taken my body literally no time to return to the level of exercising it was used to before. I can squat just as deep, run just as long and flex just as much as I could before. Then it occurred to me; muscle memory. When used in the context of exercise and strength training, it simply means that my muscles can "remember" the level of exercise and the movements it was used to performing regardless of whether or not they had been performed in a while. I immediately drew a spiritual parallel.

Being totally transparent, I know we’ve all had moments where we’ve missed having time with God for a solid week (or more) because we’ve apparently been busy. Then the voice of guilt kicks in saying, “You’ve failed, now you need to start all over again with God, one step forward and two steps backward - what's wrong with you? Why can you never make any progress?”. You feel like the worst person, like God is sitting there just shaking His head. Well, you’re wrong. Totally.

In Philippians 1 v 6 it says “​​God, who began the good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”. God is committed to the cause of making you His masterpiece. With every unplanned mark we make in His canvas, He turns it into something uniquely beautiful. God has spiritual “muscle memory” if you like. Not to beat us down with memories of our not so glamorous days but to our advantage. To show us how far we've come and to give us a "head start" in the next step.

We don’t start from scratch with God each time we mess up or get lazy, He simply picks us up from where we left off, brushes us off and keeps us moving along in this spiritual journey. Just like I was obsessed (and still am!) with obtaining a somewhat perfect postpartum body, God is determined to finish the good work in us - He continues to walk with us and each time you fall, you get up stronger with lessons learnt. So, keep going, you may have had a break in your relationship with God or fallen off the wagon altogether. Talk to Him today and ask Him to meet you where you are. Actually, He’s probably already waiting there.