Test ... or Torture?

And then God said "Thou shalt not do yoga young man." And I said "OK." And then God added "Thou as well shall be presented with tribulations that will test your faith." And I said "Uh ... well ... OK ... I guess." And then it happened.

That all happened about 3 weeks ago. You may recall in an entry from about that time that I had to leave a yoga class because I was struggling with my practice. Well, I figured out pretty quickly that God didn't want me doing yoga for a while. I will explain.

So almost the very next day, my work got CRAZY. I don't know why. It just did. It was weird too because it seemed like a slow phase had presented itself. Retail is random and my type of retail seems VERY random so you never know when it's going to be busy or slow but generally speaking it's either busy or it's slow. There never seems to be an in between.

Anyway, it got busy. Then I had some challenges that I had to face related to being busy and in the midst of facing those challenges ... well ... I sliced the tip of my finger off. Yes, the tip. It was crazy. I was bitching and moaning about something, doing something I've done more times than I could possibly count in the last two years when suddenly I realized that the razor blade I was using had cut completely through part of my finger.

I immediately and intuitively knew that I had done something pretty bad. It didn't hurt in the moment I did it and in the immediate moment after but I knew it was bad. I basically threw the blade aside, grabbed my finger and stepped back. As I came to a stand still, I was looking at a dime sized area on my finger that was no longer there and was beginning to bleed quite profusely. I then looked up to where I had been cutting and there, laying on the cutting board, was the dime sliced piece of what used to be a part of me.

I almost fainted.

The following week and a half was filled with what I can only described as one test after another from God. I won't get into details but I will stress that it was f'ed up. Way, WAY, F'ed up. Every day was filled with at least two and most days three tests. It has essentially continued until just a few days ago (I hope). It was unbelieveable. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. I almost literally cried on a few occasions.

I don't know what this has all been about. I can't explain it yet. The only thing I can imagine is that it was God testing my faith. I mean I HAVE to believe that. If I think about it any other way, I start to think things that aren't good for my mental state. And I could easily start to blaim myself or characterize it as torture rather than test. Neither of which would do me any good. It would just bring me down and make my normally positive outlook somewhat gloomy.

All I know is that I have not been to yoga in over three weeks. It's the longest break I've had since my last break which was over a year ago and was more of a mental lapse than anything else. Suffice it to say (I love that phrase) that I am about to lose my freakin' mind. I had made so much progress and was almost holding my hand stand. Now I have no idea where I am but can only imagine that I've digressed.

Oh well, yoga rocks. I love it. I will get back tomorrow night and I will start from wherever I am and I will love it. It will remind me of why I do it. It will remind me what it does for me both mentally and physically. It will bring me back to me.

Now I wonder if the reason I've had such crazy friggin' luck the last three weeks is because I haven't been doing yoga. I wonder.