I am an instructor of Pilates, Pilates Reformer, and a
personal trainer where I utilize various apparatus such as kettlebells, the TRX
suspension training system, free and body weights, resistance bands and other
implements of mass construction for strengthening, flexibility and
endurance. My goal is holistic optimal
health and wellness for my clients that will impact and improve their journey
day by day.
Weight training develops the strength and size of skeletal
muscles, which are under control of the somatic nervous system, voluntarily
controlled. The produce almost all body movement,
maintain posture, stabilize joints and generate heat to maintain your normal
body temperature. They cover your
skeleton, giving your body its shape.
Personally, I am in a very specialized training program called
“wait training.” It is also designed for
creating optimal strengthening, flexibility, endurance and growth… of my
spiritual life. Daily I am thrust into
the gym of life and given workouts and practices that carry on for hours,
sometimes days and weeks. Often my Coach
will set up an obstacle course where I can’t even see the goal line… there are
times it is so dark that my Coach has to shine His light on the narrow path
before me. And if that isn’t difficult
enough, I am frequently required to do it blindfolded, trusting only in His voice
as He whispers His instructions to me along the way. The course can be very rocky and leads
uphill, steep and frightening. But just
when I think I can’t take one more step, He will lead me beside quiet waters
along the paths of righteousness and give me His Bread of Life and Living Water
from which I eat and drink deeply until I am nourished, refreshed and renewed.
There is no timetable for my wait training, although the
most profitable of sessions have come either early in the morning at the break
of dawn or late into the darkness of the midnight hours of my soul. Sometimes I have a training partner, Percy
Verance, and regularly Goodness and Mercy follow behind me, but usually it’s just
Coach and me.
It is a most arduous of exercise, demanding everything of
me. There are times Coach has me sit on
my hands for hours on end, doing nothing – most confusing and frustrating. Other times He pushes and pushes until I
think my heart will burst. I
complain. I cry. I bleed. I have scars – but they are from the times I
have wandered impatiently off His course in search of my own training
program. Ahh… always I have wound up
hurting myself. He is demanding, asking
my completely loyalty – He will allow no other coaches to take His place. Yet there has never been a time when I have
stumbled and fallen that Coach hasn’t lifted me up and carried me back to His
path of training, wiped the sweat from my face and given me all His support,
love and guidance.
My spiritual muscles, like skeletal muscles, are
voluntary. It is always my choice to exercise
them. I can ignore them and let them get
flabby, and if I don’t use them they could atrophy and become paralyzed. When strong I am able to stand tall for my
Coach, although the times of best conversations with Him have been when I am on
my knees. My spiritual muscles stabilize
my spiritual walk, and maintain the fire in my spiritual core so I am never
lukewarm. Without toned and buff
spiritual muscles, my soul would look like a massive puddle of nothingness – a pile
of brokenness, which is how Coach found me.
My Coach has made something beautiful of me, and my wait
training will continue until I take my last breath. Only then will the glory of all this training
be revealed, and I long for that day when He will say, “Well done!”
I have to go now… it’s time to run with Percy Verance the
race set before me – I see my Coach and must keep my eyes on Him.
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