Plank.

First thing in the morning, Plank and Pray go together for me in a big way. Before I work my body, God and I have a quick conversation about why I'm doing this. Who am I really working out for: Me, Him or some guy who's never actually going to see the abs I'm trying to sculpt? Who am I trying to impress? Why do I bother? While they seem a little deep for most people at 7 a.m., realigning myself with these kinds of questions can really ground me in who I am and what my day is really supposed to revolve around. It gives me a sense of purpose.

While we're on the topic of our bodies and our purpose, I want to take a quick rabbit trail.  A few months ago, several celebrity women began posting photos of their postpartum bodies and I loved it. One of them, I really wish I could recall who, went on record saying, My body was not made to look good in a two-piece swimsuit. This is what I was created for. AMEN SISTER!! Now, not all of us want kids and certainly not all of us will have kids. But we all know what the female anatomy is uniquely capable of doing that men cannot. We can carry tiny humans in our bodies for 3/4 of a year and still love them after labor. Now more than ever, women who are pregnant or have children are not just experiencing, but talking about this unique purpose they feel for themselves and their bodies. So let me tell you a secret, ladies: I plank so that someday, I can do that too. And do it well. Not just the labor part, but the living-to-see-them-grow-up part too. Again, not all of us are going to have kids, but we all DO have a purpose and one of mine just happens to be mommyhood. And planking isn't the only way I prepare for this: I read, observe, take notes (literally, ask my cousin Genae) and most importantly, I let God know how terrified/excited I am.

Alrighty, I shared mine. Now you share yours. What's your purpose? We talked about this a bit with Pray, and hopefully some of you were able to think, even just a little, about who you are in relation to God and, by extension, where your purpose comes from. Now that you may have a better idea of what it might be - what are you doing to prepare to do it well? How are you training? Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally?

While I've got ya'll on the floor next to me, elbows digging into the mat and bum muscles burning, I'd like to humbly suggest that there is power in being ON YOUR FACE. One of my favorite Lewis books, The Screwtape Letters tells the story of a demon trying to woo a Christian away from his faith. Some of the first advice this demon receives is to convince the Christian man that it makes no difference whether or not he prays on his knees. Like I said in Pray, there is no better way to realize who you are and what you are created to do than to get on your knees before your God. 

Since coming to Baylor University, I've been meditating on a very particular scripture from the Book of Joshua and it's been a major theme for most of my prayer time here. When Joshua meets the angel of the Lord, he doesn't know who the angel is and he asks, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" I love the angel's answer: "Neither." Isn't that annoying? Joshua asks a multiple choice question and the answer he gets is 'no'. I totally get this, though. When my roommate has a rough day, I ask her, 'Would you like some chocolate or a glass of wine?' and she says 'Yes'. It's her way of saying 'Schu, you asked the wrong question, but I'll still give you the right answer'. I believe God does the same thing here with His faithful servant Joshua; He gives Joshua the answer he needs even when he doesn't ask the 'right question'. I'm not for you or against you, I AM. Listen to me. But then the angel reveals his identity and what do you know, Joshua ends up face down in the dirt. Talk about a proper reaction! As soon as he knew the character of the person standing before him, he knew the right response.

Sometimes I think the reason our worship seems lacking or we're not sure where we stand with our Father is because we don't know who He is. We might think we do, but every now and then, it's very healthy to get your face in the dirt and ask the same question Joshua asked, What message does my LORD have for his SERVANT. And it's in those moments, my friends, when the Lord tells you how to bring down Jericho.

I went to the Baylor Law School graduation last week and the commencement speaker summed up his speech with 'Fish or cut bait'. I loved that. When I plank, I'm cuttin' bait, ladies. Both physically, emotionally and spiritually. And when I'm done, that shower feels REAL good and the day ahead of me looks a lot easier to conquer. 

"Some days, I feel everything at once. Other days, I feel nothing at all. I don't know what's worse - drowning beneath the waves, or dying from the thirst."

Pray.

Last week I received the news that yet another one of my aunts had breast cancer. 

God, again?! Didn't we just do this? I'm so sick of this! I'm so sick of getting these phone calls that make me so sad and angry...then I get to drag out my 'give this to You' prayer all over again. I'm really tired of talking to You about cancer.  (By the way, I believe God was 100% okay with this prayer. See most of the Book of Psalms. Anyway, I thought I had the 'cancer prayer' down to an art.) 

God, I asked, Be with my aunt. Give her peace.

Pause. 

I wanted to say, Make her better and Give her strength. But all I could think about was the fact that I feel the most peace...when I pray. 

Dear God, help my aunt to PRAY. 

For all intents and purposes, she might as well have not even had cancer. I didn't think about cancer for the rest of the day. All I could think about was her relationship with her Father and the unsurmountable peace she would find in just talking to Him.

I firmly believe prayer is a spiritual discipline created for man to move towards God, not for God to move on behalf of man. He can, He does, miracles do happen and yes, prayer can be a powerful weapon. Want to meet a truly amazing prayer warrior? Let me introduce you to my Mama sometime. But even she will tell you that when she prays, the one who feels the first fruits is her. Prayer has a funny way of showing us who God is and, more importantly, who we are in relation. Our identity, our purpose, our reason for being can be found in that simple realization that we are great sinners and Christ is a great Savior. (Citation nod to John Newton).

I said in Eat that food is a God thing; I want to humbly suggest that prayer is a human thing - God is not the primary beneficiary. In Genesis 18, Abraham intercedes for the city of Sodom, home of his nephew, Lot. I always get a kick out of the first verse of that story, v. 18, which tells us that the angels left...to rescue Lot. Abraham hasn't even prayed for anything yet, and God is 1) already starting the rescue mission and 2) still ready and willing for a conversation with a worried uncle. Abraham talks for a good 11 verses and which God makes all kinds of concessions about saving Lot's city, but in the next chapter, both Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. Levelled. Removed from history. Lot is saved, but the city is destroyed. Archaeologists are still looking for it. Now, God did not ignore Abraham's prayer here. God kept His word; He told Abraham he would save the cities if there were ten believers there, but there were not ten to be found. Not even ten believers? Abraham wasn't asking much; in fact, he never prayed that Lot be saved, but God saved him anyway. So, if we're re-capping, after 11 verses of prayer, God keeps His bargain with Abraham by destroying Sodom, which Abraham didn't want, and He saves Lot, which Abraham didn't ask for. Now, if you're anything like Casey Schu, you're looking back over those 11 verses wondering, What good did this conversation do?! 

Answer: It got Abraham talking to his Father. Chapter 19 diverts to Lot's story, but we see in Chapter 21 that Abraham and his wife Sarah eventually have a son in their old age. I want to suggest to you that those 11 verses of pleading and begging for the salvation of Sodom were a brick, if not the capstone, of the strong, stable bridge of communication that fuels Abraham's trusting relationship with God. That trusting relationship will continue to grow until the day God asks the ultimate sacrifice of Abraham: his only son, Isaac.

Sometimes, and I have to be careful saying this, but sometimes, cancer is a lot like the city of Sodom.

Eat.

I think before I say or present anything on this forum, I need to address the three foundations for this blog and why I've chosen them. The first is easy because it's something we all do every day, hopefully, even if we don't all pray or if we don't all exercise. 

How much we eat, what we eat and how often we eat look different for everyone, so I'm not going to pretend I have the handle on the Gospel of Food. Personally, I try to find a balance between the saying, Don't live to eat, eat to live, and my Grannie's wisdom, When you've lost everything else, the last truly good thing you have in this life is good food. The point is: we ALL need to eat. One of the purposes of this blog is to help us to appreciate the little things in life as well as address the major needs sometimes taken too seriously or not seriously enough. Food is all of those. As something that directly affects our bodies and how they work, food is also something that can determine how we feel, especially in a world obsessed with size. I could feed you (pun totally intended) all sorts of inspirational quotes about beauty's relationship with carbohydrates and I could be as flippant as a chocoholic or as serious as an eating disorder. Bottom line: if food was not so important, people wouldn't have so much to say about it. So here's my two cents worth.

I really believe when we get pleasure from eating, we're touching on something divine. Especially chocolate. There's a reason heaven is described as a feast, you guys. Food and hunger isn't just a human thing, it's a God thing. Let me show you. I've been working through the book of Mark with a friend of mine and I'm discovering that like typical teenage boys, the disciples of Jesus got hung up on 3 major themes: sleeping, food and who was their coach's favorite player. I hope by the end of this post, you'll appreciate how accommodating the Gospel, and the Jewish diet in general, is to the bread-lover in all of us. In chapter 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 people with bread and fish and in chapter 8, He feeds another 4,000. Immediately after that second carb-fest, Jesus makes a metaphor about the yeast (corruption) of the Pharisees and King Harod, but the disciples fixate on the 'bread' reference and, once again, start talking about food. I bet I would have done the same. I'm also pretty sure that whenever the disciples weren't making a point about how hungry they were, they were discussing who forgot to bring lunch; at least, that's the vibe we get from 8:16. The point is, food is a major theme all across the Gospels and not just in the 'bread of life' kind of way. The disciples are usually hungry and Jesus spends most of His 3-year ministry eating with people. In fact, the last thing He does with all of His disciples before He goes to the cross is have a meal with them. Praise God that my Savior gets food. As the creator of the concept of hunger, He gets it when I look at a piece of my Grandma's German Chocolate Cake and desire nothing more than a fork and some privacy. Now that's a God I can relate with.

My Daddy  taught me 'everything in moderation'. That wasn't just good food advice, it was good life advice. So as we work our way through Eat. Pray. Plank and what that looks like for each of us, I want the EAT portion to lay some ground rules: always give yourself (especially your body) what it needs AND go easy on yourself...when it comes to the scale AND your plate. This is not a recipe blog and it's definitely not Fitbit.  This is a place for us to look at our bodies and realize they are important, they are beautiful and what they look like is not nearly as important as how we treat them. Both pale in comparison to the significance of the One who gave them to us. 

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? ~ Romans 9:20-21