I cried at the gym yesterday. It’s not about my body weight but the weight in my life that it represents.
After slowly trying to get moving the last few weeks, I finally jumped right back in with my first real workout in months. It felt good to finally be ready to attack it, yet again, and all the sudden emotions came out of no where adding tears to my already sweat soaked face.
I’ve always struggled with maintaining a healthy lifestyle but most of my adult life I’ve been “ok”. I never had the major swings in weight I’ve had more recently… those swings pretty consistent with my mental state handling life circumstances.
So why the tears? All the sudden it hit me at the gym…. I lived most of my adult life just being “ok” and I’m not talking about weight. I was content going through the motions of my life and relationship thinking ‘this is as good as it gets’ and didn’t venture out further away from ‘safety’, unaware of the great potential there was for my life.
My weight of recent years has fluctuated drastically with the mental high and low periods of my ability to handle life. And while I don’t want to be unhealthy, lethargic and struggling to keep my joy, I do feel I’m right where God wants me to be. Don’t you see?!? God doesn’t want us comfortable. He does His best work in us, through us, when we are pushed past our comfort zones and uncomfortable… searching for answers of ways to better ourselves and our lives, looking to Him for help cause we can no longer do it alone. Often we have to be forced to where we don’t want to be to open our eyes to the greatness that lies ahead.
When you’re no longer comfortable, you’re risking not being “OK” anymore. You will get hurt, make mistakes, fail or find another way of how not to do something. My life which once was “OK” has the last few years given me extreme heartache and mental exhaustion and at the same time has also been wonderful. I’ve come to realize that since I’m no longer “OK” I’ve found days better than I’ve ever imagined. I’ve grown, matured, found strength, joy, and confidence, I honestly didn’t know I had or remember I possessed. The blessings in my life are unbelievable. The business I have created is wonderful. The freedom I’ve gained, opportunities I’ve accepted, and willingness to walk new paths He has laid has given me wings to fly.
The life I have now, even on my worst days, is not just “OK”, it’s better. I am truly living and experiencing everything, good and bad, on a much deeper level than before! Finding ways to channel my energy and focus to keep making more forward steps than back to keep the positive momentum going is a challenge for me but I accept the challenge.
My tears were a bit from realizing how much of life I lived being less than what God intended, tears of thankfulness for the paths He’s opened up for me, and tears of determination that each day I make the choice to be better than the last.
I embraced the tears, let them roll off my cheek, took stock of my feelings, and then busted out the last of my 200 bent over rows thankful that I’m not just ok anymore… I’m great and getting even better!
