Invested

My senior pastor Sharon Kelly told me no woman really loves to work out. "They just do it," she says in her Aussie accent. Some time a year ago, I started making choices differently in my life out of a desire to align my life mind, spirit, and body. I was pretty good with two of those areas, but my lifestyle reflected in my health was not the example of an abundant life.

Skip a lot of emotional stuff I had no idea was there, and I found myself a member at a gym I actually show up to. I was sitting in my car this morning on my break, staring at my cute pink lifting gloves my friend Gareth gave me for Christmas. I start thinking of investment and dreams and how those gloves are an investment into the vision of my health.



I love people. I see my life standing in front of my generation and saying you can do it. Not in a corny you can-do-it way, but in a very real, hey this working it out to be better than you thought is hard, but you can do it. I promise! Sometimes it just helps knowing you aren't the only person working it out. But I digress. This vision I see for my life is intense. I believe if I am going to reach a lost and broken world I need to consist of a couple of things. I need to be relevant, and this is an image-driven culture; I need my health to reflect the victories I am encouraging others to take for themselves.

That vision is spurring me on with every miserable squat, sit up, and plank I do. It's what motivates me and renews my mind. This investment into a lifestyle change is just that, an investment. It requires a constant mental maintenance. It's such a culture shift in my lifestyle that I can't do it alone, and I have other people invested in it. Bringing us back to my lifting gloves...

Gareth has been an amazing friend in my gym world. He's the friend who does that part with me. We set goals and celebrate when the other achieves them. It is part of the accountability I guess, but he invested into my vision of my health by getting me the lifting gloves that I really wanted as a Christmas gift. I was committed to it before the gloves, but now I have tangible accountability in my car of proof that I am person who goes to the gym. I have become a person with a gym bag, a growing gym wardrobe, and lifting gloves.

They are a silly pair of gloves that are pink and fun, but when I put them on I feel like a person I never recognized before. I am a person who is actively seeking a better lifestyle, devoted in purpose to see my health come under submission, and I am the master of this body not the other way around. I am thankful for the investment my friend made in my pursuit to get healthy. I have learned through this culture shift that when God takes us on a journey, no matter the destination, he doesn’t send us alone. He colors the changes with a smattering of support – people who hold on to your dream for you, depositing little things to help and encourage you to the goal you have set before you.

Who is investing in your world? Are you putting yourself around people who are spurring you on to achieving the goals and dreams you almost couldn’t see yourself sometimes? Who are you investing in? I have learned investing in someone else’s visions and dreams gives life to your own. Did I do anything special to have Gareth invest in my gloves? No, we simply are uncomplicated friends spurring one another on, but I believe in the cyclical power of life. The more I invest in others the more God reveals people who believe in me and my life and invest themselves into the dreams and goals that are leading my life.

Go forth and invest!