Samantha Taylor
Pure Health & Fitness Studios
April is a good time to reflect on life. Spring has just begun, you are recovered from the rush of the holiday season, and summer is soon around the corner. Yet it also makes you think about how it’s already April, we are through the first quarter of the year of 2017, and just as quick, it will be 2018.
In the midst of the journey from here until January of 2018 are days full of choices. We can either be disciplined and get it done or we can be riddled with excuses of why it wasn’t. In the end, we are the only one that will look ourselves in the mirror and really know that we either took care of our health or we didn’t.
I saw a T-shirt one day that said, “There are two pains in life: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” Discipline is not always easy, however, it’s much more enjoyable to do what it takes to be more disciplined then it is to live in regret. That is one thing about this life that is wonderful but is also a challenge. We have a free will.
We aren’t robots made to just walk out this life blindly in doing all things that are good for us, we have a free will and we can choose whether to do something that is helpful or harmful to our lives. I think that so many people are just so busy, so caught up in life and were not really taught to make health a major priority that it just gets shoved under the carpet.
Yet the more you shove your health under the carpet and don’t deal with it, the more it will soon become this giant lump that you start tripping over and will cause harm. I have been in the health and fitness industry for almost 25 years and I really can’t believe how blind most Americans are to their health. Not only do they suffer but their family suffers too. It saddens me to even walk through the grocery store and see how sick, tired, and out of shape most have become.
But you know what? We will never change what we tolerate. We have to choose to not accept that for our lives anymore. We have to choose that it matters to take care of our bodies, and what better time than April to do that? It’s also a great month of reflection because of Resurrection Sunday (aka Easter).
Personally, it’s the day I experienced really meeting God for the first time, 22 years ago. This body builder at the gym would not stop talking about Jesus, and my husband didn’t really want to hear it anymore. So the guy said, “If you go to church with me on Easter, I will stop talking about it.” So we went and that day changed our lives.
It really is amazing how one decision can change your life so dramatically. Not only did my husband and I surrender our lives to God and accept Christ as our personal savior that day, but it catapulted me into an amazing experience of helping people learn how to experience victory with God in their lives, how to take what the Bible says can be done in your life and actually experience it.
Now I am blessed to have a Christian business with three locations where we can serve women in helping them honor their body as the Temple of God and become healthier so they have more energy and stamina to do the things God has called them to do in life.
I encourage you to get to church this Easter. Even if you haven’t been in a long time, just go. It can be a great turning point in your life. And if you are going to church, invite someone else to go with you. You never know who will say “Yes” just like I did and how many lives their life can impact. Happy Resurrection Day!