Crossfit
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CROSSFIT CHALLENGE
HEALTHY LIVING
When our son Christian was around 5 or 6, he began to ask me if I would be alive to see him get married, if I would be alive to see him graduate from school, and because of all the deaths we had in our family, I thought “I can’t lie to him, he needs to know that I may not be here tomorrow but that God would take care of him”. I was really into truth back then, reality, we’re not going to wear rose colored glasses and live in fantasy. I’d had to tell my mom I didn’t know if my dad was in heaven when he died. I said things like I know he loved you so much(truth), I pray that he’s up in heaven looking down at us(truth), while my sisters told things that were so much more fun to think about like He’s up there in heaven smiling down at you, and talking to us and probably were very comforting to my mom who had been in the same accident. I had a real awakening when I started reading the bible that ‘you don’t go to heaven just because you’re a nice person’, ‘in this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world’, ‘suffering produces perseverance’, and so many others. It was time to stop living in what sounds nice and let’s live in reality.
CROSSFIT, WHAT IS IT?
Why would a 58 year old woman decide to torture herself with a method called Crossfit. It happened one day when I met a young man by the name of Ben Hakim, a trainer and instructor at Crossfit Redding. Ben was fairly new in Redding and had attended the same ministry school that I had. He shared a life story of his that was similar to ours, regarding the loss of a loved one at an early age. I was immediately connected to him and wanted to know who this guy was. I decided to give him the challenge of our 16 year old son. Christian is very tall and strong, but he has no motivation if he thinks you really don’t care about him. That spills over into home life, school and working out. He’d been through a lot of trainers in the past, I thought I’d see what happened with Ben.
Ben was an immediate hit! When I dropped Christian off at the Crossfit gym, I decided to walk in and see what was up. I’d never even heard of Crossfit up to that point, and it looked like a man-gym. There was nothing pretty about it. And I saw young women who were lifting large and scary weights over their heads! Something stirred in me that connected me to my youth. Believe it or not, I ran track, played basketball and softball and was quite the tomboy growing up. I have always been athletic until the time of the many tragedies in our family. I think since that time I thought “Well, once you turn 50, you really are done. There’s no sense in pushing yourself. I don’t need to prove anything…” and so the negative self talk has been the last few years.
Standing in the gym with Ben, I wondered. What could happen if I really tried again? Maybe I wouldn’t look like I did when I was 18, but maybe I could look the best I could at age 58. Wow, is it possible that was 40 years ago? Na, can’t be. So, here’s my new challenge to myself. To see what I can do . To quit giving excuses and really see if it makes a difference. Ben is so encouraging, I think I just might be able to do something wild and crazy. But I draw the line at flipping tires. Hope you enjoy the journey with me.