My life has reached a time of transition. My
son is off to college. My daughter is
weeks away from getting her driver’s license and once that happens we won’t see
her very much. Most of my volunteer work
and involvement with the school has come to an end. We’ve spent over a decade barely making it
paycheck to paycheck and the need for me to get a second job can no longer be
ignored. My emotions bounce between
being excited for this new journey and wanting to stay in bed pulling the
covers over my head. Will I be able to
handle it? What is God doing?
If you
have read my blog in the past you know that twice a week I work out with a
group of friends from work – Team Muscle.
We are led by my friend Dana. We
still workout when she off, but put together our own workouts.
Last
Thursday Dana was off and several people were unable to come leaving just two
of us. We decided to complete a Deck of
Cards Workout which is where you assign an exercise to each suit. As you draw each card you complete the number
of repetitions of that exercise. For our
workout we chose
Spades
– ball slams (14 pound ball) for me and overhead press for my friend
Hearts
– overhead press for me (20 pound dumbbells) and ball slams for my friend
Diamonds
– sit-ups
Clubs –
squat jumps
To add
a greater challenge, every time we drew a 2 or a 3 we did 5 burpees.
Side
note: Remember that we are all at our own level of fitness and ability. Some of you may be thinking, “14 pound
ball? That’s no big deal! 20 pound dumbbells? I could lift those 100 times in my sleep!” Others may be thinking, “20 pounds? I can barely lift an 8 pound weight!” No one judges here. You are where you are and that level is great
for you! Keep it up!
We got
our equipment, completed a warm-up and started to draw cards. Within the first ten cards, we drew 6 Spades. (Yes we had shuffled the deck!) Sweat was pouring off of me as I hurled that ball to the ground. The next ten were mostly Clubs. I sprang into the air as high as I could. We'd only done one set of burpees.
We
began to talk about how we had made this quite difficult for ourselves. Should we make it easier? Squats instead of squat jumps? Lighter weights? Only do burpees for the two’s?
No
way! Was it determination? Competitiveness? Stubbornness?
I think it was a combination of all three that drove us to not change a
thing and to draw every card in the deck.
When
we were done I felt a great sense of accomplishment. We did it!
We completed 99 ball slams, 99 overhead presses, 99 sit-ups, 99 squat
jumps and 40 burpees! (If I had done
the math ahead of time, I totally would have done one extra of everything to
get to an even 100.) High Five!
In the
big picture of life, was this a huge accomplishment? No.
But it was a huge reminder to me that I am not a quitter. I can accomplish anything that I set out to
do.
I left
that workout tired and super sweaty, but I also left feeling a sense of pride
and filled with joy. I had a renewed
energy to go out and conquer the hurdle that life has thrown in front of me. Is working a second job going to be
easy? No. Are there going to be times I want to
quit? I’m sure there will be. Will I be able to handle the added stress and
be successful? Absolutely! I love when God gives me reminders like this.
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