Being Stretched

For several years now, I've been wanting to take yoga. I went to a few classes a long time ago and got discouraged at how advanced they were, how big the classes were, and the type of message that yoga was sending. I wanted to find a Christian yoga class, but I couldn't find one. I also developed a list of additional requirements for such a class should I happen to find one:

It can't be New Age-y.
It can't be very advanced.
It can't be with a large group of people.
I'd prefer it be a class with women only.
It can't be expensive.
It can't be that hundred-degree yoga.

I never thought I'd find a class that would fit my list of requirements and had given up looking.

Then, this fall, my friend Ally told me that she had become a certified yoga instructor and was offering classes in her home for $15/month. She promised that there wouldn't be New Age-y music and that the classes would be small, with only four or five gals, most of whom she knew from church or had known from her days on the TCU volleyball team. And though I was intimidated by being in a class with some athletes, I told her to count me in.

She's named the class Community Yoga, and that's exactly what we've become. As Christian music plays softly in the background with Ally's encouraging voice moving us through the different positions, we've become a little community. I find my thoughts drifting more toward how the girls are doing in their lives than how they are are doing in their poses. And I look forward to every Wednesday night, not knowing whether I'll make any progress in touching my toes but knowing that I'll try hard and that I'll get to reconnect with these gals in my new community, which should take my mind off my lack of flexibility.

It's been a gift to find the perfect class to help me work out my kinks and to allow me to start friendships with gals whose paths may not have otherwise crossed mine. And it's been an encouragement and reminder that God hears the smallest of prayers and wishes.