When the Bench Press Imitates Life

In the gym I’m a creature of habit. I have the squat racks I like, and the mobile bench I like to use. This pretty much covers all my major lifts, bench, squat, deadlift. For my bench press work I roll a mobile bench into a squat rack to allow for safety bar use since I normally train alone. So because of this I’m used to this bench. I’m used to the height so I know how to get a good arch and where my feet need to be placed.

Now, when I train I normally like to go real early or late because any other time it’s packed and I have to wait for what I want. I can exercise patience in the gym…but I don’t like to. So, one day I went at a busy time and all the racks were taken and I did not want to wait. I try to make my training efficient so I’m not away from my family for a crazy amount of time. So, I went and get a stationary bench out in the sea of benches. I was so out of my element. I picked a weight I could normally hit for 8-10 but I think I hit it for 4-5 reps. I was pretty pissed. I know sometimes you just have bad days but there was no reason I could see for this. It came to me that I was just on a different foundation.

This really got me thinking about my life, especially my faith life where the foundation is so important. Jesus teaches about this very thing in Matthew 7: 24-27:

"Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined."

In lifting, where and how you start is key to how the lift will go. You’re usually told to start your set up from the top down or in reverse, whichever works for you. The cues you use help you start off in the strongest position. Are you gripping the ground with your feet creating torsion? Are you pushing through the floor/pushing the floor away from you? Are you pushing through your heals? Are both of your feet on the floor (pretty much only pertains to bench). The same goes for our faith journey’s.

Are we rooted to the foundation that is rock…THE Rock?  Are we rooted in Jesus Christ? Are we rooted in the Church that was built on the cornerstone? Where do we turn for strength, courage, and knowledge? I think in our society today, especially with so much media at our fingertips 24/7, people look to the secular media and news to form their opinions and to figure out moral dilemmas instead of what Jesus taught.

Revelation talks about the harlot of Bablylon. Many scripture experts say that this whore is actually secular society. In the times the scripture was written the closest thing would have been Rome. Rome was the center of society and influenced all. And, it fell. Today, it would be Western society that influences. We look nice and shiny on the outside,  yet the porn industry is one of the most lucrative and fastest growing industries. We keep modern slavery alive with human trafficking. I live in one of the largest hubs for human/sex trafficking and strip clubs. Prime time media is being filled more and more with softcore porn. We are finding out more and more about the abortion industry’s  hidden secrets. And at the same time, just like all over the rest of the world though not to the same extant yet, Christianity is being pushed further and further out of the public square.

So if society is any indicator of what is going on in our local communities, our homes, in our private lives, what kind of foundation can we say we set our feet on? Do we plant our feet on the sand and when new ideas, the latest trends and fads, movies, tv shows, and progressive political trends (whether left or right) spring up, we collapse? Or do we plant our feet on the rock where the rain, flood, and winds buffet us yet we stand? 

NOLA Series: Beauty for Ashes

In this final NOLA Series post, Erika writes about experiencing God's love through her senses, and how that has affected her journey.

Many months ago, my spiritual director gave me an exercise. She suggested I pray for God to show me His love through my senses--taste, sight, smell, touch, sound. For an over-thinker like me, this proved disastrous. I kept making the prayer complicated by focusing on what I did not understand--HOW--and then I kept analyzing everything until I just gave up and told myself, "this is stupid."

And I moved on. Forgot about all the messy prayer-like words I'd uttered in half-faith. Then Chris and I went to a wedding in New Orleans. We ate and drank our way through the French Quarter the next day. I have a sweet tooth for sure, but I'm picky. I have standards, people. I'd heard of this artisan bakery called Sucré, so I half-dragged, half-rolled a very full Chris there one evening. We ordered our homemade, artsy desserts and espresso, climbed to the second story of this converted old house, and sat on the balcony with our sweets. It was perfect, y'all. Late evening, breeze blowing, jazz blaring from the street below, and I had a shmancy dessert.

I took a bite of my white chocolate bread pudding with brown butter gelato (girl, yes), and I closed my eyes, paused out of respect for the greatness, and blurted out "This tastes like Jesus loves me." We laughed.

Then it hit me and I said "OH MY GOD THIS TASTES LIKE JESUS LOVES ME!" And BAM, love washed over me. I felt LOVED.It's hard to explain what that was like. I looked around again at the beauty of my plate, the balcony, the ornate boxes Sucré uses to wrap their confections,and at Chris's slightly stunned but handsome face. I took in the smell of the sweet breeze, felt it against my face, heard the saxophone in the distance, and was surrounded by love. My life felt like a gift for the first time in over a year.
Depression does one main thing (you can read more about my experience here): it mutes your ability to see and experience beauty. The beauty of your own soul, of others' souls, of food and music and friendship. Of being ALIVE. All of that is obscured, twisted, and smothered by depression. In that moment I truly felt an explosion of beauty.

We are drawn to that, I think. To experiences of beauty. In April I started a journey as a stylist with Stella & Dot. I cannot adequately express how CRAZY that leap felt to me! I was still battling so much depression and anxiety. I did NOT feel beautiful or put together at all. This Erika, a stylist? But something about this company, the women who run it, and the artistry that goes into it drew me in. And looking back I see that some buried part of me was desperate for beauty in my life. Not superficial beauty, but beauty in ordinary things (like a necklace) that would point me to God's I LOVE YOU. To the words I so desperately needed to believe about myself: "you have something good to offer this world."  That is a big part of Stella & Dot's mission and message--that we each have a gift only we can offer the world, and we must search it out and offer it however we can. Sometimes that happens through a gathering of friends over wine & jewelry. Hey, I can't look down on that--it saved me in so many ways! I love a trunk show because it's where I get to see and celebrate the beauty in other women. It's about watching a friend try on a pair of earrings and genuinely saying, "you have such a beautiful smile!" It's about finding the good in another person.

The women I've met through Stella & Dot are incredible, and I think I know why. We are, all of us, drawn to a community of acceptance, celebration, and yes – beauty. We carry in our hands the fragile pages of a story authored by our adversities, insecurities, and desires. And we long for someone to read those pages and tell us, "this is an amazing story. This is a story I want to know." We want to be known and loved as we are. In these new friends I see all of that. We are all broken, all beautiful, and we fiercely believe the good in one another.

Much of my battle against depression hinges on getting back to basics--back to seeing the precious value in ordinary moments. A good night's sleep, a balanced meal, couch cuddles with my daughters. I know now that this is how I will win:  By cherishing the sound of jazz floating on a humid breeze, the taste of good food, the color and feel of a hand cut stone set in metal. I will win by feeling the darkness that surrounds me while clutching to my chest the light of hope reflected by my children, family, friends, and all my Stella sisters. I will seek, there in the deepest pit, the thick rope of Grace, hold on to it, and let it lift me up.

Fitness is Not Always About Going Beastmode

I love the struggle, the battle. I love the pressure that builds up in my head when arching hard and lowering the bar to my sternum in order to blast it back up. My head feels like it's about to pop. I look forward to getting the barbell in that perfect spot between my lower delts and my traps creating the perfect shelf to load body crushing weights on my back in order to squat down and push the world away from me in order to stand back up. I can't weight (see what I did there) to get to the gym, load the bar, and grab hold. As I attempt to push the ground away in order to pull the loaded weights off the ground the skin on my hands feels like it is about to rip off due to gravity pulling the weight in the opposite direction. Sometimes my skin does indeed rip off and I have to clean the blood off of the bar. In these moments I am proud.

But, not everyone enjoys this. Not everyone is trying to lift as much weight their body can handle before breaking. Not everyone is looking to be shredded to step on stage and be a living, breathing, sculpted statue. Not everyone is seeking some medal or achievement. Some people, just want to be able to move like a human and have a better quality of life. And some people, are in the gym and on the field to do just that. It's those people that can reach out to those turned off by the hardcore gym type that looks down on others who lifting past 200lbs or the shredded cardio junkie trying to motivate you past ecstasy.

Check this video out. I love her passion for fitness and people: