Foodie Friday: Freezable Egg Casseroles!

Welcome to our very first Foodie Friday! One of the top questions that I get asked is how we manage to eat healthily with a two year old, a one year old, a garage gym ministry, and have a normal 8-5 job and family life. And it is a great question. Life is busy so how do you make healthy eating a priority? Each week I will post up recipes, tips and tricks, tutorials, and more to help you make great food choices for your family. 

So, today I am going to let you in on a huge secret. My biggest tricks is to make food in huge batches and freeze it! Today I am going to share with you how to make THREE huge egg casseroles that are freezer friendly, easy to cook, and delicious. So, ready for your shopping list? I have two versions, one with the spices and one without. If you cook regularly, you probably already own everything listed in red. If you are new to this whole cooking thing you may need to purchase everything on the list. 

If you are the well stocked cook and you already own all the red, then if you purchase only the ingredients in blue the total cost comes out to $31.14. That means $10.38 per pan or $1.56 per meal (roughly six servings). That is amazing!  

If you are just starting out, obviously there will be more expenses, but then you will have all of spices and foil left over for more cooking adventures!So, if you have to purchase all of the ingredients the total cost will come out to $50.69. That means $16.69 per pan or $2.78 per meal (roughly six servings). Still amazing! 

At this point you are probably wondering how to make the casseroles. Good question! 

Italian
1.) Mix 12 eggs with 1/2 can of coconut milk  
2..) Pour 1/2 bag of frozen veggies in pan
3.) Pour oregano and Basil
4.) Top with cheese
5.) Cover with tinfoil, and I always mark the tinfoil with what it contains and how long to cook it (400 degrees from frozen it takes 2.5 hours)
6.) replace lid and freeze

Savory
1.) Mix 12 eggs with 1/2 can of coconut milk  
2..) Pour 1/2 bag of frozen veggies in pan
3.) Pour garlic, onion, pepper
4.) Top with cheese
5.) Cover with tinfoil, and I always mark the tinfoil with what it contains and how long to cook it (400 degrees from frozen it takes 2.5 hours)
6.) replace lid and freeze

Spicy
1.) Mix 12 eggs with 1/2 can of coconut milk  
2..) Pour 1/2 bag of frozen veggies in pan
3.) Pour salt and cayenne
4.) Top with cheese
5.) Cover with tinfoil, and I always mark the tinfoil with what it contains and how long to cook it (400 degrees from frozen it takes 2.5 hours)
6.) replace lid and freeze

Let me know if you try it, Id love to hear about it!

My Fitness Journey: Lea Hartman

I feel like I could write a book on my fitness journey because like most bad habits, it developed over a lifetime. I’ll just cover a few false lessons I learned that I think directly contributed to the condition of poor health I found myself in when I first walked into Farr Fitness. It’s still likely to be long winded, but trust me, this is my condensed version!

I was a skinny kid growing up but my genes did dictate my shape and I got teased often for my rear end. In the 90’s when the ultra thin waif was the ideal, my J-Lo shape was a constant source of torment to me. My own family teased me most of all. “Bubble butt,” and “birthing hips,” were just a few of the common comments I received on a regular basis. By the time I was 17, I was struggling with having a healthy view of food. That summer, I dabbled in modeling and landed a gig for a major national women’s magazine. When the team came from New York to style the shoot, I found myself standing in a room with two of the magazine’s editors as they selected my wardrobe and commented negatively on my body. I’m 5’10” and I weighed less than 130 lbs. but my hips were too big. A few months later, my family moved away and the isolation of my new home was the final push toward developing an eating disorder. I became anorexic. I never ate unless other people were with me and I couldn’t avoid it. Sometimes, I’d go days without food. I blacked out often. My family never really ate meals together so it was easy to hide. I got down to 112 lbs. At the time, I was proud of that. 
FALSE LESSON I LEARNED: To lose weight, you need to stop eating.

There was a guy from my church that was interested in me. We only really hung out in groups. I’d never had a boyfriend before and I was very cautious. I wasn’t in high school anymore so relationships carried more weight. Though I wasn’t sure where this was going (we weren’t a couple), I still wanted to impress him. I cut my hair differently, colored it, bought new clothes…all at his suggestion. In retrospect, I think he liked who he thought he could create me to be, not who I really was. One day I ran into him at the mall and he commented, “I’d love to see how you look in a slinky black dress.” As you can imagine, any possible budding relationship ended that moment but the impact stuck with me. 
FALSE LESSON I LEARNED: What you look like is more important than who you are.

My family moved again when I was 19-years old and though I had planned to stay behind, God made it very clear to me that I needed to go. Less than a week after arriving, I met my now husband of 15 years. For the first time in my life, a guy was interested in me more for who I was on the inside than what I looked like on the outside. He was so vibrant and full of life. He was also an avid hiker and the mountains of Colorado were his playground. We went hiking at least once a week, often more. I wanted to keep up with his level of activity and I couldn’t do it starving myself so I started eating.

Fast forward several years and I found myself married with three kids. I never had any trouble losing the baby weight after the first two but the third one did me in. I had experienced pre-term labor with my second child so when I started contracting heavily with my third baby at only four months, I was put on modified activity. Basically, I wasn’t allowed to do anything except care for my other two children. Our daily walks to the park, bike rides and hiking stopped and I became very sedentary. I began that pregnancy at a healthy 150 lbs. and ended it at 210 lbs. On the day I delivered I still weighed over 200 lbs. I never really regained my active lifestyle and I had also become an emotional eater.

In 2014, I was at my wit’s end. I felt horrible, both physically and emotionally. But I also felt helpless because I didn’t know what to do. I joined the YMCA and began exercising three days a week. It was a start, but I knew I needed help. Unfortunately, other coaches didn’t want to touch me with a 10-foot pole because of some prior injuries I had sustained. I joined Weight Watchers and began learning how to eat healthy foods to fuel my body. But still, after five months, I had barely made any progress (and I was always hungry). I poured out my heart to God and asked him to bring me a women with knowledge and skill to help me. Exactly one week to the day, I met Morgan! And boy, did she have her work cut out for her!

Farr Fitness became my second home and a few months in, when I experienced intense personal struggles, it was my safe haven. I was surrounded by a group of women who came together, not to tear each other down, but to build each other up. I could show up in tears, barely holding it together and be encouraged. Morgan didn’t just teach me to care for my body, she showed me how to have self-respect. She took the false lessons I’d learned as a teenager that had shaped my entire adult life and flipped them upside down! Losing weight wasn’t the same as being healthy and what’s on the inside radiates outward, regardless of what you look like. I needed that encouragement. I needed to have a place where I was accepted, just as I was. Morgan took me, pre-existing injuries and all, and structured a training plan around my limitations. She expected me to work hard but never asked me to do anything she wasn’t willing to do herself.

Though my schedule changed with the acceptance of a new job which no longer allowed me to visit Farr Fitness, my husband and I purchased our own gym equipment and transformed half our garage so that I could continue to work out. Morgan is awesome about listing workouts on the Facebook page so I was able to continue training with her even when I couldn’t be physically present. I’ve lost 35 lbs, 27 inches, 14% body fat, and dropped 3 pant sizes - and I’ve kept it off! But more than that, I learned that I had value, even when others in my life made me feel like I didn’t.

Pslam 139:14 says, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows very well.” For the first time in my life, I am comfortable in my own skin, stretch marks and all. God used Morgan to change my life and I am a better person for knowing her.

New Year, New Coach

Can I tell you the one thing I truly dislike about the holiday season? 

The end of it. But not for the reasons you may think.

I cannot stand seeing all of the "coaches" on social media trying to get people to buy their particular brand of snake oil. They all say pretty much the same thing which is along the lines of: 

Eat too much over thanksgiving? Join me for a 10 day group for the new year. New year, new you! And then they have the audacity to call themselves coaches. 

THIS IS NOT COACHING. 

This is food shamming and just plain guilting. You are an adult. What you decide to put in to your mouth is your business. 

It doesn't matter if you had sweets, carbs, or a  lizard tail at Thanksgiving.
 At the end of the day, WHO CARES? 

Life is short.

Eat the dang cupcake. 
Enjoy it, savor it. 
Just don't worship it. 

Coaching is explaining the science behind food choices not just "eat this amount of this and only a small bit of that". That isn't coaching because it isn't sustainable. Your coach won't be there at 1 am when you have the half pint of rocky road in your hand. A real coaches teaches you how to deal with difficult emotions that make you want to eat the whole pint rather than saying, "sure you can eat it, but only eat "this" much!" 

A coach teaches you how to do something on your own. They critique, push, and motivate you. Most of all a coach believes that you are worth something. You are valuable and worthy of having time (the most valuable commodity) spent on you. A coach believes in you even when you don't believe in yourself. 

So while you are watching funny cat videos on Facebook this holiday season beware the fake coaches. Don't fall for the ploy of buy this shake, this workout program, this vitamin. Find a real coach that will teach you how to fuel your body, train your mind, and discipline your spirit. Find someone that believes in YOU.  

Sleep and How Badly Do You Want It?

People ask me often how I am motivated to train, especially with two little boys under the age of two. I'll be honest with you, there are says where I DO NOT feel like training at all. There are days when the last thing I want to do is get my incredibly tired self out of bed and go throw my body under a lot of wight a bunch of times.

But, then I think about my goals.
My goals push me out of bed, when my willpower isn't enough.
So what are my goals?
Here are a few of my BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals):
I want to be back at 22% body fat. 
I want a double body weight backsquat,
I want to run a marathon.

Being an athlete well rounded enough to squat twice my body weight and be able to run 26 miles?
Those are big goals.Those are get-your-rear-end-out-of-bed-and-get-moving kind of goals. So in order for me to reach those goal, means there are no days off. That is right, I train my body EVERY SINGLE DAY. Now does that mean I train at the same intensity level every day? No way. So how do I decide when to train and when not to train, since I have two little kiddos and tired is just part of this season of life?

If you look at the picture for this article you may recognize it from the dashboard of the FITBIT sleep tracker. This was my sleep pattern this last week and it is actually a great example of all three of my "levels". So lets break them down one by one.

Level 1 is where I get 6 hours of sleep a night. (I am pretty sure when this happens the angels sing and little forest creatures dance around like in sleeping beauty.) This week was a surprisingly good week because I had two whole nights where I got 6 hours of sleep. When that happens I train at 100% of my ability level. That means I lift as heavy as I can, I go hard on conditioning, and I hit the elliptical during my children's nap time. These are my absolute favorite days.   

Level 2 is when I get between 4 and 6 hours of sleep a night. As you can see, this week there were three of those days. When I get this amount of sleep I recognize that my coordination may be a bit off due to my lack of sleep. Because I don't want to risk an injury, I usually drop all of my weights to about 75% of what I would normally lift. I do conditioning, but at a much more scaled version, and I don't do the elliptical, so I am not over stressing my body. These are the most common days for me right now. 

Level 3 seems to be where I was for most of the past month and a half. These are the nights where my 6 month old son won't sleep at all. I have learned that he does best when I am moving, so I strap him in to my Ergo carrier and I get on the elliptical and I get moving. I cannot begin to guess how many miles I have gone on the elliptical in the last two months, but it has been a LOT. The next day when I get up, I still go in to the gym, I still move m body but I do about 25% of my numbers. I don't do conditioning at all. In the evening I take my boys for a long walk through the neighborhood. And that is it because that is all that my body can take on those days. You have to train smart, or you will end up with injuries, and sometimes that means having several level 3 days in a row and that is alright. Thankfully I think that these days may be coming to an end for our family so I will soon be ramping back up to level 2 or 1 every day,

Essentially when I am saying is that when you are the parent of tiny humans, training can be incredibly challenging. However, it absolutely can be done. I watched a mom this week do her entire workout using her 15 month old son as her weight because her babysitter canceled.

Now THAT is dedication.

The best thing that you can do is sit down ahead of time and decide what your threshold is. How many hours of sleep do you need to feel great? How many do you need to feel so-so? How many is just not enough for real training? Decide these ahead of time and then follow your plan. Be smart, and let your body recover and rest, but at the same time don't use having a baby as an excuse to be out of shape. Because at the end of the day the question remains, how badly do you want it?

Ministry Monday: You Aren't Too Young For Ministry

Welcome to the very first Ministry Monday here at Farr Functional Fitness!

If you have been reading our blog for a while or if you follow our Facebook or Pinterest pages you will know that Farr Fitness is a Christian gym ministry. Farr Fitness is run entirely out of our home. We have taken the lower story of our home and dedicated it to Christian ministry. As I said in the Ministry Monday Introduction, the "gym" portion of our ministry is just a means of getting people in the door so that we can love on them the way Christ has loved on us. Yes, we memorize Bible verses. Yes, we pray. Yes, we fellowship together as the body of Christ. Because at the end of the day we want people to see the light of Christ shinning through our lives and actions, the burpees are just a bonus. With that being said, lets jump in to today's Ministry Monday!

When we started our garage gym fitness ministry, we were brand newly married and very young. In fact, Brian was 25 and I was just 24 years old. Brian had had the gym long before we were married, but up until that point it was just friends working out together. It didn't take the form of a real ministry until about six months before we left Fort Hood. We suddenly had an influx of young soldiers looking for information on how to train their bodies and how to live life as godly Christian men. 

Brian and I spoke with our mentors, did careful research, and prayed a lot during this time. 

God opened doors left and right. 

Then we PCSed to North Carolina.

When we got to Fort Bragg our ministry blew up. In the 2.5 years that we have been here we have had over 350 people come through our gym. 350 people have been in our home at least one time. Many have stayed for months. Some have stayed for years. 

All of these people have been brought to us by God in one way or another and yet somehow we often have people tell us that we are "doing it wrong". We often have people tell us that we are too young for ministry. More than once we have had people tell us that we are too young to have an in home ministry and that we need to be taking this time to focus on building up our family. I won't lie to you, a couple of times we faltered, thinking that maybe they were right. Maybe we are too young for this, and we should just raise our family until our kids are grown and THEN we can "do ministry".  

However, every single time that we have been tempted by this thought God has brought a person or an event in to our lives that reminds us of our purpose. Most recently my friend Carrie quoted 1 Timothy 4:22 when I was struggling with feeling under-qualified to minister to someone older than me. It says, "Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." This has been on my heart heavily the last few weeks. 

If God has called you to do something, do it.  Period, end of story. It doesn't matter what the opposition says, it doesn't matter if you don't fit the "normal" standard. (My mother-in-law would tell you that normal is just a setting on the dryer!) Behave in a way that makes others ask how you do it. If God has called you to something HE WILL OPEN DOORS that you simply cannot imagine. If God wants you to be somewhere or do something He will provide a way for you to do it. Your age, race, social standing, education... none of it matters to the creator of the universe. 

If God is calling you, yes even the young, go and do what He has asked. 

Ministry Monday: Get Yourself a Mentor

Welcome to the very first Ministry Monday here at Farr Functional Fitness!

If you have been reading our blog for a while or if you follow our Facebook or Pinterest pages you will know that Farr Fitness is a Christian gym ministry. Farr Fitness is run entirely out of our home. We have taken the lower story of our home and dedicated it to Christian ministry. As I said in the Ministry Monday Introduction, the "gym" portion of our ministry is just a means of getting people in the door so that we can love on them the way Christ has loved on us. Yes, we memorize Bible verses. Yes, we pray. Yes, we fellowship together as the body of Christ. Because at the end of the day we want people to see the light of Christ shinning through our lives and actions, the burpees are just a bonus. With that being said, lets jump in to today's Ministry Monday!

Today I want to talk to you about mentorship. 

To begin we need to first address what a mentor is, since it is a word that is thrown around often in today's society. Google defines a mentor as, 

... a person or friend who guides a less experienced person by building trust and modeling positive behaviors. An effective mentor understands that his or her role is to be dependable, engaged, authentic, and tuned into the needs of the mentee.

For once, I agree with google! I think that this is a great definition. But enough with the vocabulary lesson, what does mentoring have to do with ministry?

I believe that you cannot be in Christian ministry without mentorship. Sure you can try, but you will quickly fail. The Christian walk is incredibly difficult, especially in today's society. Even Paul, author of 14 books in the New Testament and arguably one of the greatest men of faith in Christian history,   had a mentor. His name was Barnabas and you can read more about their mentor relationship in Acts 9:26-30. 

So what does this have to do with us?
Hebrews 13:7 says, "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith." So, it seems to me that we are told to follow in the path of those who have been here before us. 

Ministry isn't new. It has been done before. 

Maybe you are doing ministry in a new and different way (like having a garage gym ministry for military service-members and their families) but ultimately the goal is the same. It doesn't matter if you are trying to build wells in Africa or teaching the squat clean at Fort Bragg, the goal is to bring people to Christ and help them reach spiritual maturity. 

(Want to know more about spiritual maturity? Check out what the Navigators say here.)

So reach out. 

If you are ready to do ministry, reach out to someone that you respect and ask them how they do it. Learn from them. Put yourself under their authority. Learn from their wisdom and their mistakes. Listen to their critique and criticism with humility and grace. We have enough to fight in our society and culture without trying to reinvent the wheel while trying to serve Christ. 

We have been given Titus 2 men and women that can help us in our journey, we just need to be brave enough to ask. But be ready to go in search of them. Great mentors are not walking around looking for mentees. Great mentors are often incredibly busy... DOING WHAT GOD CALLED THEM TO DO! 

So go ask.

Find a wise woman in your church and ask if you can come clean house with her and discuss how to improve your ministry. Go with the guy who is rebuilding his elderly neighbor's fence and offer your free labor as you ask him about balancing ministry and family. 

Get out there, get in the game. Time is wasting and you don't have to waste anymore of it trying to redo what has already been done. Find your mentors and get to know them, build the relationships.

We are called to be fishers of men, so get fishing. 

Ministry Monday: Introduction

Welcome to the very first Ministry Monday here at Farr Functional Fitness!

If you have been reading our blog for a while or if you follow our Facebook or Pinterest pages you will know that Farr Fitness is a Christian gym ministry. Farr Fitness is run entirely out of our home. We have taken the lower story of our home and dedicated it to Christian ministry.

Ministry is a word that is thrown around often in church circles, but many people do not understand what exactly it means. The word "ministry" actually comes from the Greek word diakoneo which means to serve. We are provided with an excellent example of Christian ministry in the New Testament through the works of Jesus Christ and His followers, who served in His name. The 2003 Encyclopedia of Christianity defines ministry as carrying forth Christ's mission in the world, it also states that it is conferred on each Christian in baptism.

So just to be clear, all Christians are to have a ministry of some sort (it will vary depending on the skills/giftings/opportunities that God gives you). It can be hard to figure out how and what to do to better serve the kingdom of God. As such, we have decided to use our blog to show a little bit more of what exactly that looks like.

We will be using this new segment of our blog each week to:

• encourage others in ministry,
• explain about why ministry is important
• show how we organize ministry/life
• hold us accountable for being more than just a gym  

Rich Mullins said it best when he stated the following: 

“I would like to encourage you to stop thinking of what you're doing as ministry. Start realizing that your ministry is how much of a tip you leave when you eat in a restaurant; when you leave a hotel room whether you leave it all messed up or not; whether you flush your own toilet or not. Your ministry is the way that you love people. And you love people when you write something that is encouraging to them, something challenging. You love people when you call your wife and say, 'I'm going to be late for dinner,' instead of letting her burn the meal. You love people when maybe you cook a meal for your wife sometime, because you know she's really tired. Loving people - being respectful toward them - is much more important than writing or doing music.” 

The "gym" portion of our ministry is just a means of getting people in the door so that we can love on them the way Christ has loved on us. Yes, we memorize Bible verses. Yes, we pray. Yes, we fellowship together as the body of Christ. Because at the end of the day we want people to see the light of Christ shinning through our lives and actions, the burpees are just a bonus. 

C-Section Saturday: Be Ready For What It Looks Like

Welcome to the Farr Fitness' C-Section Saturdays. 

As I have mentioned before I will be using Saturdays to discuss, teach, and learn about C-Section recovery for athletes. Be prepared, some of the information that we discuss will be graphic, but I assure you that I will do my best to cover each topic with the grace of the true southern lady that I am. With that being said lets jump in! 

Today I want to talk about expectations and reality. Things tend to go one of two ways with postpartum expectations. They usually end up being something like this:

"oh my gosh, my body is going to bounce right back and it is going to be wonderful" 

or 

"I hate everything I am going to fall face first in a box of doughnuts since I'm eating for two now anyways."  

And neither of these are good. 

The reality is, your body won't bounce right back. It takes time to heal from the trauma of pregnancy, let alone birth or worse, a C-Section. Your body will not look the way it did originally, no matter what magazines, advertisements, and fitness gurus tell you. You pushed a human being (or had one pulled) out of you, that changes a body. 

The other option of "I'm nursing so now I can finally eat for two" is not right either. You have to take care of your body. This is not the time to give up on yourself. Take the extra step, make the extra effort to eat real and healthy food. Get up and move your body as soon as the doctor clears you to do so. You can't take care of a precious newborn baby with zero energy. 

In reality your body will be different, and you need to be ready for that. In fact, I remember thinking that I was marred for life when I first saw my incision. I cried alone in the bathroom at the hospital nine hours after my first son was born. If you want to see what a C-section body looks like you can see those images here. Be prepared, it isn't always pretty at first. If you don't like where your body is after your C-Section, get up, and change it. 

Put one foot in front of the other. 

Don't quit, don't stop. 

You can do this. 

Psalm 139;19 says that "God knit me together in my mother's womb". Isn't it amazing to be a part of the miracle of birth? Isn't it amazing what God made our bodies to do? Your body will look different. Your body will feel different. But your body is incredible and don't you let anyone tell you otherwise.

C:Section Saturday: Make a Plan and Stick With It!

Welcome to the Farr Fitness' C-Section Saturdays. 

As I have mentioned before I will be using Saturdays to discuss, teach, and learn about C-Section recovery for athletes. Be prepared, some of the information that we discuss will be graphic, but I assure you that I will do my best to cover each topic with the grace of the true southern lady that I am. With that being said lets jump in!

Today I want to talk about the number one question I get as a gym owner. Do you want to guess what it is? Here are a few runners up:

Should I buy a treadmill? 

Maybe I should build my own garage gym? 

Should I see a dietitian? 

Would paying a personal trainer be best? 

Should I sign up for a workout subscription? 

But, the NUMBER ONE QUESTION that I get asked is: how do I get fit? 

Here is the trick... there is no trick. 

You simply have to choose/make a plan and stick to it. 

People get so caught up in the idea that they have to have the exact perfect plan and if you don't then your whole fitness effort is in vain. That simply isn't true! That, to me, is like the people that can only start eating healthy on a Monday. If they miss the Monday start time they have to wait an ENTIRE WEEK to start again. 

I have written recently about my various successes in the gym and with my body composition. You can read about those topics here and here. If you want to get fit and healthy, start like I did, simply.  Fitness really isn't that complicated! Pick there manageable goals and go from there. 

My manageable goals were: 

• move my body as often as possible. 
• eat real food
• sleep as much as I can

That was my simple plan. After a couple of weeks of success with this plan I then added to it. 

"Move my body as much as possible" became walking on the elliptical, then running on the elliptical, and now I am running my mile for time, 

"Eat real food" started with cutting out Dr. Pepper, then it moved to eating more meat and vegetables, now I am doing a Whole30. 

"Sleep as I can" is hard since I have a four month old. This originally looked like the traditional, "sleep when baby sleeps", then I put Henry on a schedule, and now he is sleeping through the night and I am back to using sleep cycles to get the best rest possible. 

Do not stress yourself out, post C-section mamas (or anybody for that matter!) the process is much more simple than the magazines would have you believe. You don't need a ton of equipment and you don't need super expensive supplements and meal plans. What you need is to make a simple plan and stick with it. Don't believe my story? Check out the stories of my friends Denise and Rachel. 

Need help coming up with a plan? Contact us at FarrFunctionalFitness@gmail.com and we can help make a personalized plan to fit your goals. 

At the end of the day you are a child of God and you are incredible. Get out there and move your body. Take care of the gift that God has given you.

Parenting vs Coaching

As a coach I carefully watch each athlete's movements. I keep detailed records of each one of my athletes. I can tell you that athlete R has a goofy elbow, athlete M has horrible shin splints when she runs, and athlete C is never fully confident that she is going to get the lift, even when the lift is over. I can tell you which days in the last year (that they have been training with me) that the athlete was sick and what they were sick with. I can tell you when their anniversary is, and what their favorite pass times are. 

A good coach knows more about their athletes than just their numbers. 

A good coach knows their lives, their stories, their dreams. 

Parenting is no different. 

The definition of a coach is someone who instructs or trains a performer or team. The definition of a parent is to raise, bring up, look after, take care of. Being a coach and being a parent really aren't that different, and yet I struggle more with one than I do with the other.

People ask me often if it is hard to run a garage gym ministry and have two children under the age of two. I will be honest, there are days where it is very challenging. The selfish side of me would love to get through coaching all of my classes without my son interrupting. I would love to get through my own personal training without having to stop to nurse the 4 month old. But that is just my selfish sin nature talking.

When an athlete comes in my gym I ask them how they are feeling, if anything hurts. I ask them about their weekend. I listen to their marriage struggles, personal difficulties, and parenting challenges. 

Do I offer the same dedication to my children? 

Today I was convicted about exactly that. I was trying to coach my beginner athlete class. It is loud, hot, and I am tired from being up with the 4 month old in the middle of the night.   

As I was rubbing my pounding head, my not quite two year old went outside the garage and picked up a handful of crepe myrtle flowers from the ground and brought them to me. Instead of graciously accepting his precious gift, I barked at him to get out of the gym. Seeing his little face fall, as he is still trying to give me his flowers, my heart broke. God spoke to my heart through the big blue eyes of my oldest son. Today God reminded me that my job is to care for, teach, and minister to my family first. I need to remember my calling from God, and not worry about what other people will think. I can't make an idol of coaching exactly the way we would in the classes where there are no children. 

That just isn't reality.  

I had a very wise friend remind me recently that God has given me these precious little boys for a short time, and that time is flying by. 

Lets do a little math right quick:

There are roughly 52 Saturdays in a  calendar year. 

That means that we have roughly 936 Saturdays from the time your child is born until your child leaves for college. 

William is 20 months old. 

We have used up 87 Saturdays of his life already. 

We only have 849 Saturdays left with him. 

That is it.

So now my focus is going to change a bit. 

Don't worry, I will still correct form, I will still be an aggressive coach for my athletes, but secondary to being a godly parent for my sons.