Monday, August 13, 2012

Rise Again


Life happens…
You can’t speed it up, or slow it down and normally you can’t change it… much. For the most part we are forced to just roll with the punches. Some punches turn out to be a love pat but often they connect and knock us to the ground.

I’ve been reading the training guide in preparation for my Level 1 Crossfit Certification test in September. For the last 10 pages Coach has been trying to define fitness. 

He says “Done right, fitness provides a great margin of protection against the ravages of time and disease.” He’s been explaining that true fitness is not specialized.  He says “Crossfit advocates and develops broad general and inclusive” training. “Our specialty is not specializing.”  

 I’ve lived enough that I have a bit of "LifeFitness" under my belt.  But like any other good fitness training regiment, you have to always keep working, advancing and becoming more agile day by day. Each of us has our weak areas that we hate facing and do our best to avoid. We’d rather cherry pick our problems and face things we feel more confident in and avoid the more inconvenient aspects of our weaknesses. But “LifeFitness” doesn’t come from hiding from those parts and specializing in our strengths, instead we must face all life's difficulties head on.

We are setting goals at Crossfit Legacy and posting them for all to see. We are taking a good look at ourselves and admitting personal weakness and becoming vulnerable to our fellow athletes so that they can love on us, encourage us, keep us accountable, push us, pick us up off the floor, and just be part of our process until they are no longer weaknesses. I think this is healthy exercise to do in every aspect of our life so that we can become better equipped for what life has to offer. By taking an inventory of ourselves and with a little help from others, we can become more complete, stronger and more agile in our response to the difficulties that come at us.

We must wake up every day with renewed hope and awareness so we don’t succumb to the negative we see all around us.  By realizing that life is an adventure and every chapter in that adventure has ups, downs, scary, and happy times we can have hope when looking toward what will happen next.
So what are some of the things in my life that provide my margin of protection against the ravages of life? 

1.        A relationship with Christ. I’m told in Philippians 4 that I shouldn’t worry about anything and when I turn to Him when I’m in need, I will experience His peace which exceeds my understanding. And it will guard my heart and mind as I live.
I have seen this play out in my life and know that this is the most important sword and shield one can possess.
2.     Faithful Friends. These are the people that wipe the sweat off my brow, bandage up my lip, give me a sip of water, pat me on the butt and send me back out to face the world just a little bit stronger.
3.     Family Ties. I didn’t choose them and they didn’t choose me, but there is no turning away from it. They are family and they will love me unconditionally. A cultivated healthy relationship with family members can give you the gift of honesty while also proving a haven when times are tough and the world seems cold.
4.       Life Experience. One of my favorite quotes is:
 GOOD Judgment comes from Experience.
    And Experience comes from BAD Judgment.

Each tough situation that I go through reinforces the importance of utilizing each aspect of my margin of protection. Each defining turn in life is an opportunity to be more prepared for the next one down the road. If I’m watching and taking notes I can slowly become "LifeFit" and learn to better navigate through this adventure.  

No comments:

Post a Comment