In honor of my two year anniversary doing Bikram yoga, I bought myself a new mat. Anniversary aside, if you look at my old mat, it becomes apparent that a new one was definitely needed. When I joined two years ago I bought the cloth Breathe mat. It’s not rubber. It has three layers and doesn’t let the sweat go through the bottom. The bottom is a really nice gray dry cloth. The top is a cozy terry towel. The middle has some kind of absorbent lining in it. I washed and dried that mat almost everyday for two years. Scroll down to the picture and take a look before reading on.
That mat and I have had quite a journey together. We spent the whole first year having our innards slowly pull away from the walls holding them. They clumped up and were tossed about, landing in different places everyday. I remember moving small solid clumps of lining around with my feet as I stood on the mat everyday. The second year wore our outer covering so thin, that absorbing much of anything was hard. Finally, a hole tore right where the mat said “Breathe” and a similar hole tore in my heart, right where I breathe. Over the course of the last months, stuffing flaked, crumbled and fell out of both of us. I spent many days shaking the mat all over the basement floor when I removed it from the washer. (I’m sure my husband wondered where all the “snow” was coming from, but he never asked.)
Once the mat was empty of all this stuff that wasn’t needed, it felt flatter and easier to stand and lie down on. Once I finally lost all the loose stuff rattling around inside of me through the hole in my heart, I was much easier to deal with, too. Yes, that mat and I have come through snow, rain, cold, heat, sun, humidity and anything else that was thrown at us through two years of seasons. Every morning, all by ourselves we would walk to the car in any kind of weather and make our way down the road to class. That mat would support my feet in the standing series when I felt strong, cuddle me when I lay on my belly during the spine series, and just plain be there to catch me in the times when I thought I could go no further and just flopped down on it. A lot of wear and tear was done in that hot room – to both of us.
Now it’s time for a new mat. It’s time for a new journey. It’s time for a bright color to aid in my building up process. It’s time for me to work on three brand new layers. Lately I’ve been wanting to learn how to stay close to God when “Life is good”. That old mat is the evidence of begging God to help me and a lot of clawing to just do what it is I do everyday. Now that life really is good again, I want to maintain that relationship with my lord. I never want Him to have to snap me by the collar to bring me back to His side that way, ever, ever again. Yes, my life has changed in my days on that old mat, and it is going to change again over the next two years on this bright, cuddly new mat.
I almost felt sorry for this new mat when I laid it on the floor today for the first time. You see, I know the journey ahead of it. It, too, will have its innards torn loose by the daily washing and drying, and it, too, will eventually lose its stuffing and have it’s covering fade and wear thin. I will not be taking that gut wrenching journey with this new mat, but we’ll hang together and it will still become my new “blanky” in the hot room.
Thank you, lord, for seasons and years and the passing of time. You got me where you want me now, lord, so please help me work hard to stay here. As my friend Joanne sings on her Skywatch CD, “I only want to be your delight.” Make that my new journey.
And so, as another day goes by, the old mat is rolled up and relegated to my closet, the new mat sits on the kitchen chair, smiling at me and beckoning me on to a new journey with its softness and bright color, I willingly pick it up, smile, and trudge out to the car in an early morning rain, thinking “here we go again”, and ….I have written.
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