THE STRETCH

In honor of Charlie.
They were there at their own volition—some out of curiosity, some to learn, some to argue, and fight.

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I am officiating a wedding, this weekend. In fact, on the very day this entry of the Journal publishes I will be standing on the edge of Lake Pend Oreille with the vastness of God’s creation as a backdrop to the groom and his bride.

What I had planned for this Journal entry was to share my heart about what it feels like to speak meaningful words that usher in the sacred union of two people.
And then the week unfolded in a tragic and then transformational way.

Through words, I am compelled to labor to make sense of the senseless, to stitch these two profoundly important events together on paper in an effort to untangle the discord living inside my head.

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The bride is my trainer and the instructor of my stretch class. My entrée to this fitness journey brought me, bald and weak, to the center of a bustling weight room filled with humans that appeared to be at the top of their game.
What I lacked in confidence, I made up in sheer will and determination—
determination to get my life back, or maybe to create a kind of life that would make me feel less like victim, and more like conqueror.

We are more than conquerors, after all.

There is something about not being able to touch your own toes that is unsettling.
It comes with the revelation that along with a rigid body, comes a rigid mind.
Healing, I thought, has no room for rigidity—Regret. Anger. Disappointment. Unforgiveness. These were the words I feared above all the rest. And I determined in that season to do everything I could to remove them from my life.

Rigidity becomes anger unchecked.

The body, if fed the same thinking over and over, will lock into a posture of rigidity, the muscles following the brain in its refusal to analyze, consider, bend.

Here’s the question the events of this week has inspired?
What are the areas I need to stretch in? How could a little “bending” heal my life?

To bend. To open. Even just a little—
To another point of view,
Toward a cause bigger than ourselves,
In a direction not yet taken.

This stretching. There is no part of us that escapes the necessary aching of body and mind not only in the moment, but a deep and insistent residual effect.

Have I mistaken pain as something to be avoided, even feared?
Have I missed that pain is necessary for my growth?

Stretching is the ache that saves us.
The tremor that whispers: you are built to bend, not to break.

The danger is when rigid becomes normal.
Certainty poses as defiance.
Retreat becomes reflex.

But love is not rigid; it is tensile strength—
elastic enough to absorb impact,
strong enough to return to shape.
Stretch tells another story.
It insists there is space where we thought there was none.
It encourages we are capable of opening,
even in the places that ache.

This week I am consumed by the duality of two colliding stories—
A wedding
A death

I will stand before a groom and his bride and ask them to yield to one another.
And I will ask them within the context of all that’s swirling in the world and in my head,
to bend, not break—
as they lean into conversation,
as they bear witness to what the other said,
as they humble themselves in reflection,
with a disposition of love, honor, and respect.

When I am left to wonder what my part is in all this world is, I begin with who I am with the people I love best—.
Staying in the conversation long enough for truth to surface.
Not cutting one another off, not severing revelation.

Illumination nearly always waits on the far side of discomfort,
past the reflex to walk away.
beyond the urge to retreat.

Truth is never cheap; it requires investment of our whole selves.
We know this in our homes, and we experience it in our prayers.
When we hurry the holy conversation,
and arrive with our own conclusions,
we silence the Word that longs to meet us.
Only in the lingering does revelation appear.

Prayer is God’s example of the stretch.
The sacred dialogue that asks us to arrive empty-handed,
to wait without agenda,
to believe that something unexpected,
something revelatory,
even something supernatural,
can happen in the gap.

Strength is not found in the clench.
It is found in the stretch.
In the willingness to be pliable, bendable, open—
toward one another, toward the Light.

The higher mystery is this—
stretching is not only about what we do,
but who we become.
Each time we remain instead of retreating,
every time we bend instead of breaking,
we are transfigured.
Less bound to our reflexes.
Less tethered to our fear.
More radiant, more human,
and by grace—
more like Christ Himself.

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
—2 Corinthians 3:18

NOTES

The stretch does not end with the body; it continues in the soul until even our countenance is changed.

If you’d like to think further on what transfiguration looks like in human form—here are a few reflections.

Transfiguration, for Jesus, was a mountain moment: His face radiant, His very being shimmering with divine light. For us, it is quieter but no less real. Paul reminds us: “We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

From a human perspective, transfiguration is not about glowing robes or mountaintop visions; it is about the very ordinary ways grace reshapes us:

Capacity: Each stretch proves we can hold more than we imagined—more patience, more forgiveness, more courage.

Identity: Every time we bend instead of break, our likeness edges closer to Christ. Rigidity gives way to radiance.

Vision: Lingering in hard conversations widens our sight lines. We begin to see not only what is, but what could be.

Embodiment: Transfiguration is not abstract. It shows up in softened faces, gentler tones, reconciled bodies.

Perhaps most beautifully, transfiguration happens not only in prayer or on mountaintops, but around tables and in living rooms. Our daily conversations become places of grace. Every time we remain long enough to truly hear, every time we stay pliable when we would rather shut down, something in us is changed. We leave that exchange not only more human, but more Christlike.