October 16, 2025 • 57 mins
In this powerful episode of the Faithful Fitness Podcast, Coach Alex VanHouten sits down with nurse, fitness instructor, and Revelation Wellness trainer Kim Dobbs to explore how faith and fitness come together in the hardest seasons of life.
From raising three boys to walking through the unimaginable grief of losing her son, mother, and mother-in-law, Kim shares how God used movement, worship, and community to sustain her. She offers practical insights for anyone who feels “too old” or “too uncoordinated” to start exercising, reminding us that every step is stewardship and every movement is worship.
Together, Alex and Kim dive into biblical themes of embodied discipleship, the role of Christian music in fitness, and how staying active keeps us strong in both body and spirit. Whether you’re walking through grief, leading a class, or just trying to stay consistent, this episode will encourage you to train hard, pray harder, and see your body as a temple to steward, not a problem to fix.
🔑 Main Discussion Themes
00:00 – 03:00 | Pre-show conversation: plans, prayer, and God leading the discussion
03:00 – 08:00 | Kim’s background: nurse, mom of three boys, lifelong mover
08:00 – 12:30 | Faith and fitness united: music, worship, and movement
12:30 – 18:00 | Favorite Christian workout songs (TobyMac, Crowder, Disciple, Brandon Lake)
18:00 – 22:30 | Becoming a fitness instructor after grief and God’s prompting
22:30 – 28:00 | Loss of her son, running together, and grief through movement
28:00 – 34:00 | Grief as a lifelong journey; hope and peace through Christ
34:00 – 42:00 | Functional fitness: from groceries to grandkids
42:00 – 48:00 | Independence, Alzheimer’s prevention, and the joy of movement
48:00 – 54:00 | Fitness in church settings: Revelation Wellness, Bible study movement
54:00 – 58:00 | Precept Bible study, legacy of faith, and embodied discipleship
58:00 – End | Closing prayer and encouragement
🙌 Move Forward Today
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/faithful-fitness-by-better-daily--5150768/support.
From raising three boys to walking through the unimaginable grief of losing her son, mother, and mother-in-law, Kim shares how God used movement, worship, and community to sustain her. She offers practical insights for anyone who feels “too old” or “too uncoordinated” to start exercising, reminding us that every step is stewardship and every movement is worship.
Together, Alex and Kim dive into biblical themes of embodied discipleship, the role of Christian music in fitness, and how staying active keeps us strong in both body and spirit. Whether you’re walking through grief, leading a class, or just trying to stay consistent, this episode will encourage you to train hard, pray harder, and see your body as a temple to steward, not a problem to fix.
🔑 Main Discussion Themes
- Kim’s journey: nurse, mom, trainer, and disciple-maker
- How grief shaped her relationship with fitness and God
- The role of Christian music and worship in movement
- Why fitness in the church matters more than ever
- Training for everyday life—independence, mobility, and joy
- Biblical lessons on grief, endurance, and embodied worship
- Encouragement for older adults and those feeling “too late” to start
00:00 – 03:00 | Pre-show conversation: plans, prayer, and God leading the discussion
03:00 – 08:00 | Kim’s background: nurse, mom of three boys, lifelong mover
08:00 – 12:30 | Faith and fitness united: music, worship, and movement
12:30 – 18:00 | Favorite Christian workout songs (TobyMac, Crowder, Disciple, Brandon Lake)
18:00 – 22:30 | Becoming a fitness instructor after grief and God’s prompting
22:30 – 28:00 | Loss of her son, running together, and grief through movement
28:00 – 34:00 | Grief as a lifelong journey; hope and peace through Christ
34:00 – 42:00 | Functional fitness: from groceries to grandkids
42:00 – 48:00 | Independence, Alzheimer’s prevention, and the joy of movement
48:00 – 54:00 | Fitness in church settings: Revelation Wellness, Bible study movement
54:00 – 58:00 | Precept Bible study, legacy of faith, and embodied discipleship
58:00 – End | Closing prayer and encouragement
🙌 Move Forward Today
- Grab my devotional: Faithful Fitness – A 40 Day Devotional for Christian Health and Stewardship → https://Faithfulfitnessdevo.com
- Join the Better Daily Community → https://betterdaily.live/invite
- Start moving: Even 10 minutes of walking or stretching can change your day.
- Try worship workouts: Build a playlist of Christian music to energize your fitness.
- Remember your why: Fitness isn’t vanity—it’s stewardship of God’s temple.
- Check out Revelation Wellness (link in show notes) for Christ-centered fitness resources.
- Connect with Kim Dobbs on Facebook to follow her classes and encouragement.
- Kim Dobbs (Facebook) – Connect and follow her updates here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566734985510
- Revelation Wellness – https://www.revelationwellness.org/class/fitness-in-the-park/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/faithful-fitness-by-better-daily--5150768/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast for My Dad. Coach
Alex Van Houghten helps you get stronger and mind, body,
and spirit. He believes that your body's a temple, so
taking good care of it is an actual worship.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I should know.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I live with him every week. He brings truth from
the Bible too, from science and stories that will set
your heart on fire. May God bless you to become
everything He made you to be, just one percent better
every single day.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey, what's up? I got a question for you. Is
fitness just about burning calories and building muscle or is
it possible that God can use fitness in our life
to minister to our hearts through seasons of grief, pain,
and loss. I think it's the latter. And in our
episode today, our guest Kim Dobbs, mom nurse and fitness instructor,
(00:53):
talks to us about her story with seasons of grief
in her life and how fitness helped her regardless of
her age or fitness level. We're going to talk about
some of the science backed ways that fitness keeps your
brain and body sharp, and we're going to talk about
the practical ways that you can start walking in the
calling God has for your life today through your fitness practice.
(01:14):
Let's get into it. What's up, guys, This is coach
Alex van Houten on the Faithful Fitness podcast. I am
so excited to be with you today. Our mission is
to help you make the most out of the body
God's given you, and I believe that this conversation is
going to help you on that front because I have
an awesome guest, Miss Kim Dobbs. Kim, how are you
doing this morning?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I am well, thank you, glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You lock bright eyed and bushy tail. Did you already
get your workout in or like a walk or something.
You look like you're feeling good.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, well, no, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this,
but I worked a late nursing shift last night and
I got home about about midnight and I was a
little wound up. Woke up about five thirty and just
to getting my stuff done in the house. So I
have been busy. But I have my workouts. I teach tonight,
(02:07):
so I'm mindful of my time in my body. So
sometimes I don't work out in the morning. If I'm
working out at night.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Man, don't be embarrassed about that. That's actually real life,
real life. I've been a real life here for twenty years.
And one of the things people don't understand about being
a personal trainer or a fitness instructor is that I
have to budget my body's energy and my joints, and
I have to think about who I'm training, what I'm doing,
(02:37):
and in place that in my own personal exercise program
because if I don't, I'm just going to end up injured.
So you you're training a class tonight, correct? Is it
a two class? Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Two classes this evening?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Okay? At two classes? So two hour long classes? Yes, yeah,
that's no joke. So like for most people, that's the workout, right,
But as a fitness instructor, you you jump in there
and whether you've worked out or not, you have to
go be high energy. You got to jump around, you
got to call things out, demonstrate exercises. It's no joke.
It's hard, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
It is very hard. And I like to play too.
I don't sit on the sidelines. I want to play.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Let me out, man, I feel that. I feel that.
So I had a client session this morning at six
in the morning, and so I'll work out. I'll work
out later today for myself, but it'll only be about
thirty to forty five minutes because my client session was
extremely high energy. I was down there doing push ups
with them and squats and demonstrating exercises and stuff. And
I saw your picture on Facebook with your drumsticks. You
(03:37):
look like a high energy instructor, like you're going to
bring your best every.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Time I try, I try.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I love that. So for our listeners, you're not just
and not that this doesn't matter, but you're not just
a fitness instructor and personal trainer. You're also a writer,
you're a nurse, you're a mom, you're a wife, like
you're you're juggling and balancing a lot of things in life,
and you're very active in your community as far as
(04:05):
I can tell from the outside looking in. And so
I want to ask him, obviously, both faith and fitness
are an extremely important part of your life. How did
God bring that together for you? What does it look
like in your life for God to have said, Hey,
you're going to You're going to walk in the calling
on your life and bring your faith to the forefront,
(04:26):
and fitness is going to be a part of that,
what did that look like for you.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I've always been active. When I was a kid, I
was active. I'm a boy mom. I have three boys
and have always had a lot of folks around us.
We homeschooled, so we had a lot of folks around us.
We were very intentional about our activities. I like to
(04:55):
be active. And as my family aged, as I a
my parents aged, I saw the consequences and the results
of some poor choices. And I also I came to
Christ later in life, at the age of twenty five.
So there I was at a mom, a young mom
(05:17):
with one child at the time, and having to think
about my choices and how I could be a better
set a better example. And I just feel better when
I'm active. I think my parents better, I serve better.
When my kids were young, I would have to wait
(05:37):
until my husband would get home and then I'd go
for a run, sometimes in the dark. I would just
do it when I could. Never been a super early person.
So anyways, and then in our churches and in our communities,
I just see it saw a need for movement, for
people to be moving their bodies, and I think it
(06:00):
needed to be separate. I thought we could we could
do those things together, and we could do those with
our faith and in our churches.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
As you're speaking, I had I had a picture in
my mind of Elijah. So, so Elijah battles the prophets
of Bail on the mountaintop right and has this big
wind for God and proves that Bail's not a God
and that God is God. And fire and brimstone raid down,
eat up the altar, right, and so he has this
(06:33):
amazing experience. And then and then God ministers to him
in the desert under a bush. He actually wants to die.
He's he's wore out, he's done, he's he's at a
low place. And God ministers to him and then sends
him on this like forty day hiking journey to come
to the mountain of God and me to hear God
(06:54):
speak to him. And God's not in the earthquake, and
he's not in the fire storm and he's so Elijah
gets to to spend time with God. But the but
it's it's so interesting to me as you were you
were talking there, that picture came to mind, that that
the encounter with God came from a physical journey, a
physical hiking across the desert so to speak to the
(07:16):
mouth of God. And as you're speaking, I was like, yeah,
it sounds like you've been on a journey like that,
where it's like, yeah, you're going to meet God through
through the activities and have a heart for for the
church to do the same.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yes, I use primary primarily I use Christian music, but
I'm a little edgy with my music still. I brought
into my relationship with Christ some likes and dislikes regarding
music and movement. But I wanted I wanted to honor,
(07:51):
honor that time with God, honoring music. And I think
of all the ideas and thoughts and changes the Lord
put in me while I was walking or running or
working out because of what I was listening to and
changing my mindset. And so I was twenty five. It
(08:14):
was nineteen ninety you don't tell my age here, nineteen
ninety five, and we didn't have you couldn't download music
wells yeah, yeah, And I remember buying a whole bunch
(08:34):
of Christian CDs just so I could see what I liked.
I had to find something I could listen to because
the Lord was telling me what you're listening to now,
it's not any good. We need to change that. But
I already knew what I liked and I wanted. I
wanted something fun and exciting. So music, it was a
huge part of it and part of my movement and
(08:55):
part of my worship and obviously and how I operate.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
But yeah, I think that's that's such a powerful thing
to talk about, if you don't mind stopping down on it,
because you're right the From a biblical perspective, music is
one of the ways that we bring worship to God.
There's an there's an entire psalms that are like, praise
him with the timbrel and praise him with the liar,
(09:21):
like depends on which translation of the Bible you're reading,
and get some are these instruments? What is he talking
about with the shout? I love I love the story
of King David praising him while the Ark of the
Covenant's coming in and he's doing flips, you know, and
his wife's like, what is wrong with this guy? But
but you know he's he's praising him with dance and
so so music is a very deep part of a
(09:42):
worshipful relationship with God, and music is also a deep
part of the fitness culture. You know, you're a runner.
It's hard to keep up what one hundred and twenty beats,
one hundred and forty steps a minute without you know,
some driving, some driving beats. And and what's really cool
about the age we live in is there amaze artists
who have taken the high energy aspects of music and
(10:06):
taken some of the really inspirational aspects of music and
and interwoven them with h scripture and interwoven them with
psalms and interwoven them with with Christian themes. So so
I here in my garage, Jym, I work out to
like really hardcore heavy metal. Like if you were listening
to it and you didn't know the words, you're like,
something's wrong with Alex, nothing's wrong with me. They're they're
(10:28):
like yelling scripture in my you know. And that's and
that's wonderful for me because because there was a time,
like you said before, before Christ got a hold of
my heart that was really into like it was heavy metal,
but it was there was no redeeming language, you know,
there was no worshipful aspect to it. It was all very
worldly and and I would say angry, but but that's
(10:50):
you know, when when in my fitness journey. Being able
to take that music and put it under the dominion
of Christ and then and to enjoy that and to
enjoy us in my workouts was was a huge part
of working things out in and heart. While I was moving,
sounds like you had this, So I got to asked,
what are your favorite two songs to work out to
(11:11):
right now?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I like anything by David Crowder. Yeah, I still love
Toby Mack. We there there is a version of Jesus
Freak with Owl City, and I get that going. And
there's other girls my age and the class and say,
you're playing my jam.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah. So those are some old ones. Those are some
older ones. Let's see what else do I like? There
is some old family Force five that's fun. I like Disciple, Yeah,
some good ones. Brandon Lake. Yeah, I got some good
(11:57):
stuff with with the season that's coming up. I joke
and I'll say, this is the scariest song you're gonna
get from me. But we have we have a drumstick
workout to. I need a ghost, oh man. And that's fun.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, so my wife and I
do a lot of work with children's ministry, and U
we believe that the spirit of worship in our church
exists most purely in children, and so we we will
often you know, a lot of the songs that we
worship to with the kids are really high energy, and
(12:32):
we're jumping around and we're dancing and having a good
time and stuff. And I always pray, like, Lord, I
want you to imbue these kids with a spirit of
worship so that when they when they get older, they
don't become stuffy old adults who don't know how to
praise you. You're like, yes, I don't want to be here.
I'm going to worship like watermelon, watermelon. Do you ever
(12:53):
get that church like bubble gum.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Bubble gum water Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So so it's my heart that that, you know, we
see adults praising and worshiping in the same way that
the innocent and pure faith of young kids can do.
And it sounds like you guys do that in your
fitness classes. So when did you become a fitness instructor?
How long have you been doing this?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I've been I started out as a spin instructor. I
loved spin. I can't dance, I don't have any coordination.
I felt a little awkward in like strength training classes.
So when I joined a gym, I just for the
heck of it. Tried a spin class, and I really
(13:38):
felt there's not a lot of attention on you as
an individual, not a lot of pressure to perform any
certain way. You just had to keep moving. Everybody was
concerned about their own self. They weren't looking at you.
And I really enjoyed it. And I joined a gym
(13:58):
and COVID happened, and one fella kept telling me you'd
be a good instructor. Let me train you. So I
learned a little, and then COVID happened, and some instructors
didn't come back. So they asked me to take a class,
the five point fifteen am class. Right, not a morning person,
but nobody else wanted the class. And just like I
(14:22):
don't miss an opportunity to talk, I also try not
to miss an opportunity to teach. So by then the
Lord had already been making a change in me, saying,
don't be fearful, don't be afraid. You don't have to
sit in the corner. You do have something to offer.
That's what I felt the Lord was saying. To me
(14:43):
and our gym had bought some new beautiful bikes with
these awesome computers in them, and they certified us in training,
so I felt like I was a little better equipped
then we had gone. So this was in twenty the
end of twenty twenty and UH COVID was going on.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
UH.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
My mom got sick and she passed very quickly. I
was working my son's school closes, my youngest son, he
goes to school. I homeschooled the other ones, and I
had gone back to work full time as a nurse
because they really needed us. And my mom got sick
(15:30):
and she she asked me, she said, will you quit
work and take care of me? And I said absolutely.
I have been blessed and privileged that my husband has
the Lord has provided, and my husband has agreed to
it that I keep a rather flexible schedule. He's always
(15:54):
traveled so and he's my biggest fan and my my
biggest supporter and far nicer than I am. But when
I when I want to do something, if you know,
if it's doable and it's and it's in it's right,
he'll do whatever he can. So so when my mom
asked me to stay home, and take care of her.
I said yes, so I quit work and she she
(16:18):
passed eight months later. And there were two things that
I had been wanting to do. I had gotten involved
in revelation wellness. Was very interested in their their approach
and their beliefs, and so I asked him if I
could become a trainer. And that was a gift he
(16:38):
gave me after my mom passed away, and it was
so it was so helpful to immerse myself in those lessons.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, perfect timing to work through the grief.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yes, yes, And I had been taking classes at Samford
University and their ministry training tension courses and it took
me six years. But about shortly after that I had
a little more time and I got my certificate in
(17:11):
Biblical studies in women's leadership. And to me, that all
tied together. Yes, it all tied together, the biblical knowledge
and then the fitness. So that was his gift to me.
So it was about that was in twenty twenty one.
(17:31):
My mom passed in April and I was certified that fall,
and I have really enjoyed it. Sometimes it's a little
bumpy trying to find out where I fit. I am
older I am usually off, yes, most times, the oldest
one in my class. They don't call me coach Kim,
they call me miss.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Kimpt I guess, I guess. So I have to tell
you a story real quick. My best client, my entire career,
and she's probably going to listen in on this. So
what's up, Katie? I love you. She's she I've been
working with her for over twelve years, and she's adopted
my kids as her grandkids and whatnot. She's in her
(18:14):
late sixties, she'll be seventy soon, and she is often
the oldest quote unquote in the class age wise. But
what's so powerful about it is is it gives her
such a such an air of authority in the fitness
space because obviously whatever she's doing is working for her,
(18:35):
like whatever she's eating, however she's moving, however she's orchestrated
her life. And I know for a fact that she's
a woman who juggles so many things. But there's just
so much strength and endurance both in her body and
in her mind that she has such an air of
authority over so many people's lives who will come to
(18:55):
her with questions or come to her with concerns and stuff,
and they know that that she's a she's a rock.
And so I'm going to speak that over you too.
What being the oldest in the class makes you a rock.
It's like proving to the world like I'm here. There's
no expenses for anybody else, you know, and like I'm
here and I'm doing my work and and I'm going
(19:15):
to lead you and coach you in that direction. So
I'm sorry they call you miss instead of coach us.
But but I'm just glad they call me. They call
it right there, right and and that's that's so, that's
so wonderful. So so thank you for being that. I
know it's not easy. I know it's not easy to
be that in the community, but thank you for being it.
(19:36):
It's necessary and good and God made you for that.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, thank you, thank you. I was kind.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
So so uh, let's one piece of your story that
that's very difficult, and you kind of mentioned it just now,
But one piece of your story that's difficult is that
that God's used fitness to help you work through some
very intense grief. If I was reading your your biocorrectly,
you lost your mother, your mother in law, and your son,
(20:06):
and all three of those are terrible losses. Yes, And
I want to ask first, how has God used fitness
in your life to help you through grief? And then
I also want to ask how you've seen that play
out in the lives of people that you've coached. But
I'd like to start with you, if you're willing to
(20:26):
speak on it, Kim, how did God use fitness in
your life to help you work through grief?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Well? It makes me tired and it occupies my mind.
So my mind I can have those intrusive thoughts that
are a little hard to shake. It's been I suppose
my bio is a little bit misleading. My son passed
(20:55):
away in twenty eleven. He was sixteen. We used to
run together. We had a lot in common. We ran
my best time, which I'm not going to tell you
because it's still a terrible time. My best time for
the Burming the Mercedes half Marathon was when I ran
(21:15):
with him. Oh man, it was my most enjoyable, my
best time, my best recovery. He was twelve in the
half marathon.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yes, what a monster.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
My mother had a fit. My mom was an RN
and he started running with me when he was seven.
And let me say this for young moms working out
with your kids, best time to have a conversation. We're running, right,
he's in his early teens. We're running. We can't look
(21:51):
out of eye, so there's no awkwardness. We're running focusing
on not falling down, and we could have a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So I don't know. I don't know if this is
a male female difference, but I do know this about
men because I do a lot of ministry with men.
I do a lot of ministry with children, and I
have two sons, so I'm a boy dad. Men will
have intimate conversations shoulder to shoulder. Yeah, we don't. We
don't want to. We don't want to be sitting in
front of you over coffee eye to I mean, we can't.
It's possible, but you'll get a lot more out of somebody,
(22:22):
especially at a young you know, manchild. You're gonna get
a lot more out of them doing something, and they'll
be way more open, way more honest, way more forthcoming, curious,
all those things. Shoulder to shoulder. That's that's a that's
very well said boy. Mind So, and.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Having said that, with the homeschooling and with exercising together, baseball, soccer, frisbee.
I'm still I will never outgrow frisbee. That is just
so much silly fun.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Such a perfect game, is it not? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
And no my kids did yeah, uh, And that was
fun to watch sometimes sometimes it was cool if mom
sat on the side and let the kids play. I
didn't always like it, but but I'd sit out sometimes.
But when he passed, there are things that I was
(23:25):
so grateful I did. And that was was homeschool because
just by proximity and by time I knew him so well,
and the and the fitness together. And then we went
on a mission trip six months before he passed, so
(23:46):
to see him serve I mean, those are things that
that I guess if I hadn't had those, I wouldn't
know that I missed them. Sure, But having had that
time with him and those experiences fantastic memories. And just
like we need to know God's character to be certain of,
(24:11):
you know, of what he promises, knowing my son's characters
so well really helped me to process through that loss.
And there was a lot of unknowns. We don't know
how he died, and the Lord said, you will not
(24:32):
know because I knew Justin's character and because I know
God's character. Then I'm not saying I'm okay with that.
I'm just saying I accept that there are some things.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I won't know that you're able to have peace with that.
That's the thing about grief, right, Like you don't have grief.
Grief's interesting in that you can't. And I don't mean
this to sound heady. This is actually a very visceral thing.
You can't you can't place it to the side in
a healthful manner. It's something that has to be worked through.
It has it has to be wrestled with, It has
(25:07):
to be it has to come up in all of
its forms. Right. But but grief doesn't mean that you're
going to to wrestle as intensely your entire life through
through Christ, especially since we we as Christians, we don't.
We don't grieve as the rest of the world grieves.
We still grieve, but we grieve with hope and that
(25:28):
and that there's peace in that. There's there's peace in
the ability to struggle with to wrestle with grief, to
work through grief, and to come with peace. It doesn't
mean that you're okay with everything. It doesn't mean that
that your sunshine and rainbows galloping, you know, happily through
the meadows with no cares in the world. That's that's
(25:49):
not real life. But but to have peace for me,
that's the precursor of joy. If I can have peace,
then I can also find joy in strength and goodness
of God.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Well, and people would ask me, don't you want to know?
Don't you want to ask more questions? How can it
was in our house? He died in our house? How
can you stay in that house? We only moved two
years ago, so we stayed in the house a total
of twenty two years. Walked in and out of the
door where we found his body, and I kind of
(26:23):
felt that as a sort of a kick and Satan's
rear in because he didn't win. He didn't win. The
Lord used it for good. And so you're talking about
the grief process. So it's been fourteen years and this
(26:43):
afternoon I'll go to a grief share group, and yesterday
I went to counseling because I certain things will come up.
We're currently we have we're currently going through some hard
times with my husband's father. He's our only remaining parent,
and he's given us a really tough time. And when
(27:04):
I work as a nurse, I'm an I work on
an Alzheimer's unit.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Oh my goodness. So so you've seen it all.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yes, yes, but current situations have have just brought up
some things in me. And and so my my grief
share class a wonderful counselor who's who's on call. I
mean I might go months without seeing him, and I'll
(27:31):
call him up and say, you know, can I come in,
or can John come in? Or as my husband, sometimes
we drag my son Paul in. But so with the
fitness and the counseling and the availability of good pastors,
(27:52):
it seems like a long time. Fourteen years seems like
a long time, but it seems like yesterday. And I
don't put a timeline necessarily on on the you know,
the process or the steps. Sometimes I take a few
steps back, but.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, absolutely one. I think I think that I have
a I don't know why this is a picture in
my head, but I'm going to try to bring it home.
I have a what do we call them a red bud?
It's a red bud tree out here. Yeah, it's beautiful
little tree. Actually, but it likes to. It likes to
grow little sucker trees off the bottom. And every year,
(28:31):
multiple times in a year, I have to go out
and I have to have to find the sucker at
the root, chop that sucker off, because if you don't,
it will it will hurt your tree. It'll keep the
tree from from growing. And in the in the Christian life,
Paul says, don't let any roots of bitterness grow in you.
He says, don't let any roots of bitterness grow. Why
(28:51):
because it hurts the fruit hurts the fruit of the tree.
You bitter, bitter roots bring bitter fruits, and so it's
a it's not just grief. If you've wrestled with addiction
in your life, if you've wrestled with abuse or trauma,
if you've wrestled with those things, it's regular maintenance to
(29:11):
notice when roots spring up, suckers, and you get down
there and keep the keep the bitter roots from growing,
because because the fruit of your tree, of your life.
And I know this meta I'm not trying to carry
this metaphor too far, but Christ said you will know
them by their fruits, and and for for us as
(29:33):
as redeemed disciples, of Christ. I feel like that's that's
a necessary responsibility of maintenance in our life to say, hey, hey,
there's a root right there, let's take care of it.
Let's let's deal with that root. And and a lot
of times that does require us to bring in other
believers who can help us to manage that, to work
(29:53):
through that, to root it out and then move on
with with bearing good fruit in the world. And it
sounds like for me that metaphor makes sense. Does that
make sense to you, Kim.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
No, it made a lot of sense. It sure did.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
So. So I do want to ask some practical questions
because we've we've talked a lot about kind of the
why in your story, and thank you for being so
about your story, even painful things that that. You know,
there's probably somebody listening to this who's like, Okay, I
I've probably wrestled with some grief. I need to I
(30:31):
need to get some good Christian music. I need to
go work out, like I need to start start moving
my body and stuff. I can't. I can't say I'm
too old, miss Kim. Coach Kim says, I don't care
how old you are, Like, we got to do this
thing so so what when when you teach from an
instructor's perspective, when you teach, what are some of the
(30:51):
questions that that beginners or maybe people who are struggling
to keep this consistent in their life. What are some
of the questions they're bringing to you, and what are
some of the things that you're asking them to do?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Well? I teach such a mixture of people. I will tonight.
My first class is a water aerobics and those are
mainly older people. And then I will go right from
there to a kickboxing class. Yeah, so much fun. We
(31:24):
work out a lot of frustrations. So what I get
a lot. I get a lot is I can't do that.
I'm not coordinated enough. I can't squat that low. I
can't do any more squats. I'm gonna fall over. I
get you know, So my my my thing to them
(31:47):
is that I like to tell them we we are.
We are in a practice here. If a doctor, a
doctor or a lawyer, he calls his business a practice, right,
he's always learning. You want your doctor always be learning? Right, Well,
so we are, we are the same. We need to
keep working on it, and I will I'll be trying
(32:09):
to do something requiring a little balance, and I'll tip
over a little bit. And I said, look at that.
I straightened myself back up, fixed my form, and I said,
every time you tip over a little bit or have
to put your other foot down, you have just strengthened
yourself real big about We talk a lot about function,
(32:32):
about mobility and mobility and preventing injury. We like to
add an everyday movement to something I'm teaching, Like we're reaching,
I'm getting something off my closet shelf. I want to
be able to reach for this, you know, and then
(32:53):
we're just gonna grab it and smash it on our knee.
But we're able to reach, getting down on the floor,
you know, and being able to get up. If it's
my older folks, we need to be able to play
on the floor with our grandkids. Absolutely, you need this
is this is This is really silly. But sometimes what
(33:16):
if you got to get away from something in a hurry,
What if you got to get underneath something? You know,
we need to be able to duck. We do like
Bob and weave when we're boxing, Yes, even sideways as
a squad carrying a load, I said, grab, grab something
a little bit heavier. When we go to grab our weights,
(33:36):
I said, think about grabbing something a little bit heavier.
We're going to be mindful of how that feels. But
I said, what if we just you know, get some
good posture and we hold something heavy and we walk
across that room and that way when you're bringing in
your groceries or you're you know, you're helping something around
(33:56):
the house, you know, helping your husband lift something. I
do a lot of lifting. We se right, but you know,
I want to be able to do that. We want
to be able to do that, and I want the
young people to know that there these are healthy practices
now that will make them feel better later. And I
(34:17):
think right now it's very important that we are mindful
of what we can do for ourselves to prevent needing
too much care later. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Well, so I want to stop down on that. I
think that's so important. And you can speak about that
with authority as a nurse, because you see, you see
things that happen to individuals when their capacity for independence degenerates.
And the research is very clear. We don't exactly know
(34:54):
all the causes of Alzheimer's, but we do know what
helps and we also know what is inversely correlated, meaning
if you do these things, you have a very very
low risk of Alzheimer's, and if you do have Alzheimer's,
your risk of losing all of your capacity to walk,
for instance, you can actually you can actually keep that
(35:15):
from happening to you, right, And these are neurological functions.
As you were speaking, I was thinking about how in
youth we take for granted all the things that our
body can do without us having to think about it, right,
And that's such a wonderful blessing, Like I'm so glad
my ten year old doesn't have to worry about being
able to bend over and tie his shoes without hurting
(35:37):
his back. You know, it'd be a terrible world if
all the kids suffered in the same day that somebody
in their fifties or sixties might who is taking for
granted bending down and tying shoes. Right, But at the
same time, in youth, we have the opportunity to learn
how to train those things so that we can continue
enjoying those things in the ages where we don't get
(36:00):
to take that branded anymore. As we say, you don't
use it, you lose it, right, and the neurological process
is age related. Cyclopedia after age thirty, you're going to
lose muscle tissue every year you don't train it. That's
just a fact. Super sorry. And then similarly, our neurological system,
our brain, our spine, talking to our muscles. As you said, coordination,
(36:24):
We will lose the ability to do different things if
we don't train them. But the good news is God
made our body such that it's trainable, it's adapt if
you practice these things. I'm working with a guy right now.
When we first started working together, he's in his mid sixties.
When we first started working together, he could not walk
down my driveway forty yards. He couldn't walk down my
(36:46):
driveway without significant pain. And then he had accumulated this
movement pattern where he was shuffling his feet. Do you
know what I'm talking about, where you drag your heels
rather than push off your toe when you look forward. Okay,
that's actually correlated with Alzheimer's. By the way, when you
start shuffling your feet, that's actually a decent symptom that
your neurological system is tending toward dementia, which is not good.
(37:10):
And so we've been working together for two years. He
can squat. Now, he can row, he can put his
hands over his head, he can hike three miles, right.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, it's so. It's so wonderful. It's so wonderful. And
what he would tell you is he thought all of
that was out of his he couldn't do it anymore.
Like two years ago, he would have said, no, I
can't do those things anymore. I can't do this. I
can't do that. You know, there's too much pain. My
body doesn't work that way. I can't move. And now
after practicing, and I mean he's not like jumping over
(37:42):
small toddlers in a single bound or anything, but he's
seen significant improvements in his coordination and his strength. And
what's so cool as the world got a lot bigger, right, yes,
Like it's not just your house and the one place
you drive to, the world gets a lot bigger. It's like, Hey,
I can go for a hike, I can go fishing.
(38:03):
I can get in the floor with my grandkid. He
didn't have a grandkid two years ago. Now he does.
He's like, I can hold my grandkid and it doesn't hurt. Great,
it's so good. Yeah, and so and so it's so
it's so powerful what you're saying that that whether you're
old or young the idea and old's a relative term.
I hate saying that. I like to think of it
(38:24):
as an older and I think of it as an
energy wisdom spectrum. You trade the energy of youth for
the wisdom of of not youth. And but but you,
that doesn't mean you get to break down, though. You
have the opportunity to take the body God's given you
and to train it. It takes some intentionality, kind of
like the Bitter Roots. They take intentionality Christian walk too,
(38:49):
but it takes intentionality. But if you do it, the
body adapts, and it's just amazing. It's amazing. So bless you,
and thank you for what you're doing with individuals to
do that, and and for for just speaking that, like, hey,
you don't have to be able to jump in this class,
but I want you to be able to pick up
your groceries. That's non negotiable.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yes, yes, we've got When we do a hip hinge,
we're stepping over the dog gate, you know, at the
dog gate. Yeah, and we could do a hinge where
we're pushing the car door shut with our with our
backside because yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Well, the vast majority of injuries don't happen in a workout.
They don't like if you're doing a workout safely. It's
a practice, you know. I'm intentional. I'm thinking about the
injuries happen in everyday life when we try to do
something that either we weren't prepared to do, we shouldn't
have done yet, or have lost the ability to do
but we didn't know.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, well that's what we say too. We're working out
in here so that out there we you know, we're
better capable and we caught we we you know we Yeah,
I think you said you use the word opportunity. Yeah,
and we we like to say it's our get to
I don't have to be here, and I'll I don't
(40:03):
care how big my class is. I'll tell them I said,
I am you didn't have to be here, you know,
I am so glad that you came. I'm humbled. I
am humbled every time somebody comes to my class because
I am I am so flawed. I mess up a lot.
I'm you know, not as seasoned as some of the
(40:25):
as the some of the other instructors. But I'm just
real honest with them, you know, like, I'm sorry, I
screwed that up. We were doing this fun little squat
thing where we were going in a circle. We were
doing a tobata and oh, some of them loved it,
some of them hated it. Somebody never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
What is that style?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
I know, Yeah, but that's another thing. We try different
We try different things. I think, as well as the
physical part of it, I just think that learning new
things keeps your brain sharp and it staves off that
that memory decline, that cognitive thing. So when I work
(41:10):
as a nurse, the reason I like memory care and
assisted living it's more relational. I've always done long term
care and it seems like it's just a lot of
pushing meds. But in this, the facility I've been at
now for about eleven years, it's more relational and I
(41:33):
get to spend more time talking with people and learning
about them. I love that. But once a month on
Sunday after church, my husband goes with me and when
we exercise with them, and and they they love it. Yes,
you get some drumsticks out and they they love it.
(41:56):
They love to move, they love the music. We might
just be sitting in our chair, but we're dancing.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, yeah, and it's nice. We had my my youngest
he's six now, but when he was three, we were
going through uh, my my nana, well it was my
wife's grandmother, but we all called her nana. She she
went to assisted care for dementia for a time after
(42:22):
her husband passed. And uh, and we spent a lot
of time there, would go and and but but you know,
get a three year old and an assisted care place,
like he's he doesn't sit still, No, he's all over
the place, right, So.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
They probably liked it.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
They loved it. Yeah, he was the life of the party. Yeah.
He would bring balloons and blow him up and then
like he'd run around hitting it, and then like everybody
would join in. Here. You had like a like so
much funny ladies and dudes like hitting the thing waiting
for him to hit it back to him, and like
like it was like they were all exercising men. There
were squatting and standing and reaching and all kinds of stuff.
(42:58):
And I was like, man, lookt him go, he's running
his own exercise class. You don't even know it.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
How about a little bit of movement will make anybody
feel better.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yes, you know, exactly right, that's exactly right. It just
God made us that way. God made us embodied, embodied people.
You know, Jesus. Jesus's ministry was moving all the time.
He was always going from place to place. He wasn't
just sitting on a chair somewhere and everybody coming through.
He was always moving, walking on water and walking to
(43:31):
Samaria and walking up the mountain, you know. And that
I believe. Obviously I'm biased, but I believe that that ministry,
the ministry of today, especially with so many advances in
technology and people being so stuck in the virtual world,
that that the ministry of today has to be embodied,
(43:52):
that has to incorporate the body, the body of individuals
so that they can feel it, they can see it,
they can and they can reap the benefit in the
body and not be separated from that. I think it's
extremely important today.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
And it's not that's a discussion we've been having at
Revelation Wellness lately is about fitness in the church or
or talk of the body in the church. A lot
of people don't want to talk about that. In the
church setting. On Tuesday mornings, I teach a Bible study,
(44:30):
and we go in thirty minutes early just for a
little bit of movement. And sometimes it's just walking around
the gym. Sometimes it's a little stretching. Sometimes we get
out our drumsticks. But it's a really nice way to
start a Bible study.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, yeah, I do the same when when I'm ministering
with men, oftentimes they meet me at the park, don't
eat breakfast. We're going to be fastest, And they're like, wait,
can't we just go to breakfast. I'm like, no, We've
had plenty to eat. We're gonna we're going to fast
and pray together.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
I love that. I listen, you said that in a
podcast I listened to. It might have been with the
one Yeah, but you had said come fasted, and I
was just thinking about it. I guess we were talking
about you were talking about food in itself. Everything does
not have to revolve real food.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Sure does not. Sure does not. In fact, uh Christ
said this is my body broken for you, like like
he's he's the sustenance. And that's the thing. You know,
I don't need to talk about fasting here, although I've
done some done some work on it and make sure
that that my community understands the heart and spirit of fasting,
but but as a as a body, when we learn
(45:46):
how to hunger for the right things, he said, blessed
those who hunger and thirst righteousness, for they shall be
filled right in our day and age. It's it's so
easy to fill that hunger with all kinds of other stuff,
Like we can we can fill that hunger with mindless scrolling.
We can fill that hunger with video games and movies,
and we can fill that hunger with with potato chips,
(46:07):
you know, like we can fill that with so many things.
But what's cool. I love this for men and men
and women's bodies are different, but but I love this
with men specifically. Look, if you have a problem and
we're going to work it out together and we're going
to seek God together, We're going to be hungry while
we do it. We're jointly going to be hungry for
the right thing, so that so that we can we
can do that thing with our with our whole heart
(46:29):
and our whole mind. It's it's always been kind of
strange to me to sit down in front of somebody
at breakfast talking about a problem. Oh, you stuff your face.
It's like, what like this is a problem, but I
feel very satisfied and satiated in this moment. Isn't bacon
so tasty? Like what I feel like, We're not uncomfortable
enough here to deal with the issue.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
You're oh, oh, that is so good. We need to
be comfortable being uncomfortable. We need to normalize some suffering.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
I think, Amen, that is so good. Yeah, that was James, right,
Take joy, dear brothers, when you face trials and many kinds,
for suffering produces endurance and character and hope. Actually, I
think I melded Romans five and j But they're saying
the same thing, like Paul and James are saying with
the same spirit, like it's okay, It's okay to be uncomfortable.
(47:19):
It's ok to in fact, in fact, some of that
is part of the maturation process of a disciple, is
to go through some hard things.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yes, Romans. One of the verses that kind of our
family embraced was Romans at eighteen, where I consider these
present trials nothing compared to the glory revealed in Christ Jesus,
Amen and Isaiah sixty one to three about beauty for ashes,
(47:49):
and you know, there's just something so much better for us,
and if we would just be patient and rely on
God in those tough times and get to know him,
get to know him. After my son passed away, I
could not get enough of the scriptures. Just before twenty
(48:10):
twenty is when I went through training to be a
precept instructor. It's an abductive form of Bible study, and
it essentially you use the word to explain the word
you don't. There's not Maybe when you get way into
the study, they suggest you can look at a commentary
(48:30):
if you want to, But by then you are so
consumed with the cross references and the context, and you
know the literal meaning of the word and not my
own thoughts. By then, I've let the Holy Spirit reveal
to me truth. I don't need to know what man
has to say.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Then, yes, you know, there was a there was a
time in my life where I would have told you,
if you pin me down, I would have told you
I was an atheist. I wasn't a militant atheist. I
was I was somebody who believed that faith was. The
short way to put it is is that that faith
was beautiful, but it was naive and so so for me,
you know, I didn't want to attack anybody's faith, but
(49:10):
for me, I couldn't. I couldn't wrap my head around
you know, big Man in the sky and so so.
And obviously that's not how I feel or think now,
but I remember there was a time in my life,
even even with that belief, that when I picked up
scripture and I stopped listening no offense to the peace
the pastors or preachers. I stopped listening to sermons and
(49:31):
I just read about Jesus. Yes, and I'm going to
get a little emotional talking about this, But when when
I got to where I could, I could, I could
read it, and it was like I could, I could
taste the salty air while he was he was teaching,
and I could. I could hear his voice and I could,
I could, I could picture the love and intention in
(49:53):
his eyes when he's like, hey, I just want you
to follow me, Like that's all I want from you,
That's why I've done this. And he came to life
for me in such a powerful way that it was
so uh, it was so deep and true. That I
had heard so many other things from so many other
(50:13):
people about who God was and how he did things
and blah, blah blah, and what to think about this?
And and I had read scripture and thought of it
like a like a like an action plann or instruction booklet. Right,
but but the Holy Spirit uses the word of God
to bring him to life every well, with every word.
(50:36):
He can literally bring it to life with with every word.
And if you'll, if you'll read, I had a had
a friend of mine I was leading through this process
who's who's come to come to Christ since then, which
which is so makes me so happy. But I was like, hey,
I need you to get a Bible that doesn't have
study notes and doesn't have the headings, and just to
(50:58):
read what it says. Just read it, just think about it,
just pray about it. Not that those things are bad.
Sometimes those are really helpful things to teach you what
to how to understand Greek words and that sort of thing, right, right,
But don't make this such a heady thing. I ask
God to show you who Jesus is and then go
from there. And it was a powerful experience for him,
(51:21):
as it was for me too. So thank you for
being a part of Precepts ministries. It's actually a I
remember it from when my mom was like like in
her early twenties. Yep, going through precepts. Minister. It's such
a colored pencils with her colored pencils.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yes. So when I came to Christ that I mentioned
when I was twenty five and I was not a believer.
My husband's from Georgia. I'm from Michigan. His family sends
him up up to Michigan or well, he goes up
there for some training. He's there for five years, and
he meets me. I'm divorced, I smoke. I'm from Michigan.
(52:01):
His parents say, don't bring back, no Yankee. Wife brings
me back and she introduces me to Precept. I'm not
at all what she wanted for her son, but she
welcomed me and she loved me. She loved me so well.
(52:23):
And my husband introduced me to Christ. My mother in
law led me to Christ and introduced me to Precept.
So I was twenty five when I started taking it,
and I was fifty fifty two when I became an instructor.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
That's awesome. That's awesome. A test to the power of
a strong, loving woman's faith to umbrella another young woman.
And then also it looks like you get to you
get to live that out too.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yes, yes, I have a lot of her study and
her notes. When I did, I taught Revelation. Uh, and
I still don't know anything about it. It's too deep,
but I have it was so good. It took us
two years to go through it, the little group I have.
But I had these big charts that my mother in
(53:17):
law had made and it was so beautiful to tack
those up on the wall. And so we're exercising in
that room, right, and then we sit down and we
read Revelation and my mother in law's notes are on
the wall, and there is a legacy to be had absolutely, families,
and we need to we need to pass that love
for God's word down.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Amen. Amen, that's that's actually a command in Deuteronomy. Yes, agains,
because how are they going to know that I in
the Red Sea unless you tell them that's that's such
a that's such a big thing. And then we have
the opportunity, I mean, we have we have testimonies, we
have a testament of God's goodness that we've lived through,
and we have the opportunity to uh to teach our
(53:59):
kids that things, which requires some uncomfortable conversations. But yes,
they're either going to hear it from you or they're
going to go learn the hard way right right now now, Kim,
I could talk to you all day, and I'm so
grateful for this conversation coming up on Enjoy Yeah, Sa same.
So I would love to cover you in prayer, cover
the ways that you minister in prayer and h and
(54:21):
also to close this off with prayer. So if you
would bow your head with me, sure, Father, God, thank
you so much for this day. Thank you for the
opportunity to meet my sister Kim and to have this conversation. God,
I pray it's been a blessing to those who are
listening and watching. Got to pray a special hedge of
protection around Kim and her ministry with fitness, but also
(54:46):
also your Holy Spirit's energy and peace and love. As
she shows up at work as a nurse. I know
she does such important work, bearing her own burden will
and bearing the burdens of the families that she touches
through working with well your children whose minds are deteriorating here.
(55:08):
I pray your grace is sufficient for her, that she
is a light in a dark place, and that your
love shines through so it doesn't feel dark at all.
I also pray that you will sustain her body so
that she can continue being an instructor, whether she's Miss
Kim or Coach Kim, that she can help other people
to be independent in you until you call them home.
(55:35):
God bless him and bless this conversation in Jesus' name. Amen, Amen,
thank you, Yes, thank you so much. And I would
encourage our listeners. I'm going to put some links in
the show notes. You invited people to connect with you
on Facebook, whether you're a local or virtual, and then
also you provided me a link to Revelation Wellness and
(55:55):
some of the resources that we're inspiring to you. So
I'm going to put those links in the show notes.
But for the listeners, guys, this has been Coach Alex
van Helton on the Faithful Fitness Podcast. Thank you so
much for joining us today. Until next time, you guys
know what I'm going to say, Train hard, but pray harder.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
Hey, if this episode helps you, jare it with someone
who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe
and leave us a raving review so more people can
find Faithful Fitness. Oh and my dad's new devotional is
almost out now. You can grab a copy for yourself
and then join our free community at Better Daily by
(56:38):
clicking on the links in the show notes below. We
all have a cross to carry, but it's lighter when
we do it together, so check out both links in
the show notes. Don't be a big well Bob, just
do it until next time. Don't forget Train hard and
pray even harder.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
Took the post
Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast for My Dad. Coach
Alex Van Houghten helps you get stronger and mind, body,
and spirit. He believes that your body's a temple, so
taking good care of it is an actual worship.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I should know.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I live with him every week. He brings truth from
the Bible too, from science and stories that will set
your heart on fire. May God bless you to become
everything He made you to be, just one percent better
every single day.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey, what's up? I got a question for you. Is
fitness just about burning calories and building muscle or is
it possible that God can use fitness in our life
to minister to our hearts through seasons of grief, pain,
and loss. I think it's the latter. And in our
episode today, our guest Kim Dobbs, mom nurse and fitness instructor,
(00:53):
talks to us about her story with seasons of grief
in her life and how fitness helped her regardless of
her age or fitness level. We're going to talk about
some of the science backed ways that fitness keeps your
brain and body sharp, and we're going to talk about
the practical ways that you can start walking in the
calling God has for your life today through your fitness practice.
(01:14):
Let's get into it. What's up, guys, This is coach
Alex van Houten on the Faithful Fitness podcast. I am
so excited to be with you today. Our mission is
to help you make the most out of the body
God's given you, and I believe that this conversation is
going to help you on that front because I have
an awesome guest, Miss Kim Dobbs. Kim, how are you
doing this morning?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I am well, thank you, glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You lock bright eyed and bushy tail. Did you already
get your workout in or like a walk or something.
You look like you're feeling good.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, well, no, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this,
but I worked a late nursing shift last night and
I got home about about midnight and I was a
little wound up. Woke up about five thirty and just
to getting my stuff done in the house. So I
have been busy. But I have my workouts. I teach tonight,
(02:07):
so I'm mindful of my time in my body. So
sometimes I don't work out in the morning. If I'm
working out at night.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Man, don't be embarrassed about that. That's actually real life,
real life. I've been a real life here for twenty years.
And one of the things people don't understand about being
a personal trainer or a fitness instructor is that I
have to budget my body's energy and my joints, and
I have to think about who I'm training, what I'm doing,
(02:37):
and in place that in my own personal exercise program
because if I don't, I'm just going to end up injured.
So you you're training a class tonight, correct? Is it
a two class? Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Two classes this evening?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Okay? At two classes? So two hour long classes? Yes, yeah,
that's no joke. So like for most people, that's the workout, right,
But as a fitness instructor, you you jump in there
and whether you've worked out or not, you have to
go be high energy. You got to jump around, you
got to call things out, demonstrate exercises. It's no joke.
It's hard, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
It is very hard. And I like to play too.
I don't sit on the sidelines. I want to play.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Let me out, man, I feel that. I feel that.
So I had a client session this morning at six
in the morning, and so I'll work out. I'll work
out later today for myself, but it'll only be about
thirty to forty five minutes because my client session was
extremely high energy. I was down there doing push ups
with them and squats and demonstrating exercises and stuff. And
I saw your picture on Facebook with your drumsticks. You
(03:37):
look like a high energy instructor, like you're going to
bring your best every.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Time I try, I try.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I love that. So for our listeners, you're not just
and not that this doesn't matter, but you're not just
a fitness instructor and personal trainer. You're also a writer,
you're a nurse, you're a mom, you're a wife, like
you're you're juggling and balancing a lot of things in life,
and you're very active in your community as far as
(04:05):
I can tell from the outside looking in. And so
I want to ask him, obviously, both faith and fitness
are an extremely important part of your life. How did
God bring that together for you? What does it look
like in your life for God to have said, Hey,
you're going to You're going to walk in the calling
on your life and bring your faith to the forefront,
(04:26):
and fitness is going to be a part of that,
what did that look like for you.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I've always been active. When I was a kid, I
was active. I'm a boy mom. I have three boys
and have always had a lot of folks around us.
We homeschooled, so we had a lot of folks around us.
We were very intentional about our activities. I like to
(04:55):
be active. And as my family aged, as I a
my parents aged, I saw the consequences and the results
of some poor choices. And I also I came to
Christ later in life, at the age of twenty five.
So there I was at a mom, a young mom
(05:17):
with one child at the time, and having to think
about my choices and how I could be a better
set a better example. And I just feel better when
I'm active. I think my parents better, I serve better.
When my kids were young, I would have to wait
(05:37):
until my husband would get home and then I'd go
for a run, sometimes in the dark. I would just
do it when I could. Never been a super early person.
So anyways, and then in our churches and in our communities,
I just see it saw a need for movement, for
people to be moving their bodies, and I think it
(06:00):
needed to be separate. I thought we could we could
do those things together, and we could do those with
our faith and in our churches.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
As you're speaking, I had I had a picture in
my mind of Elijah. So, so Elijah battles the prophets
of Bail on the mountaintop right and has this big
wind for God and proves that Bail's not a God
and that God is God. And fire and brimstone raid down,
eat up the altar, right, and so he has this
(06:33):
amazing experience. And then and then God ministers to him
in the desert under a bush. He actually wants to die.
He's he's wore out, he's done, he's he's at a
low place. And God ministers to him and then sends
him on this like forty day hiking journey to come
to the mountain of God and me to hear God
(06:54):
speak to him. And God's not in the earthquake, and
he's not in the fire storm and he's so Elijah
gets to to spend time with God. But the but
it's it's so interesting to me as you were you
were talking there, that picture came to mind, that that
the encounter with God came from a physical journey, a
physical hiking across the desert so to speak to the
(07:16):
mouth of God. And as you're speaking, I was like, yeah,
it sounds like you've been on a journey like that,
where it's like, yeah, you're going to meet God through
through the activities and have a heart for for the
church to do the same.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yes, I use primary primarily I use Christian music, but
I'm a little edgy with my music still. I brought
into my relationship with Christ some likes and dislikes regarding
music and movement. But I wanted I wanted to honor,
(07:51):
honor that time with God, honoring music. And I think
of all the ideas and thoughts and changes the Lord
put in me while I was walking or running or
working out because of what I was listening to and
changing my mindset. And so I was twenty five. It
(08:14):
was nineteen ninety you don't tell my age here, nineteen
ninety five, and we didn't have you couldn't download music
wells yeah, yeah, And I remember buying a whole bunch
(08:34):
of Christian CDs just so I could see what I liked.
I had to find something I could listen to because
the Lord was telling me what you're listening to now,
it's not any good. We need to change that. But
I already knew what I liked and I wanted. I
wanted something fun and exciting. So music, it was a
huge part of it and part of my movement and
(08:55):
part of my worship and obviously and how I operate.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
But yeah, I think that's that's such a powerful thing
to talk about, if you don't mind stopping down on it,
because you're right the From a biblical perspective, music is
one of the ways that we bring worship to God.
There's an there's an entire psalms that are like, praise
him with the timbrel and praise him with the liar,
(09:21):
like depends on which translation of the Bible you're reading,
and get some are these instruments? What is he talking
about with the shout? I love I love the story
of King David praising him while the Ark of the
Covenant's coming in and he's doing flips, you know, and
his wife's like, what is wrong with this guy? But
but you know he's he's praising him with dance and
so so music is a very deep part of a
(09:42):
worshipful relationship with God, and music is also a deep
part of the fitness culture. You know, you're a runner.
It's hard to keep up what one hundred and twenty beats,
one hundred and forty steps a minute without you know,
some driving, some driving beats. And and what's really cool
about the age we live in is there amaze artists
who have taken the high energy aspects of music and
(10:06):
taken some of the really inspirational aspects of music and
and interwoven them with h scripture and interwoven them with
psalms and interwoven them with with Christian themes. So so
I here in my garage, Jym, I work out to
like really hardcore heavy metal. Like if you were listening
to it and you didn't know the words, you're like,
something's wrong with Alex, nothing's wrong with me. They're they're
(10:28):
like yelling scripture in my you know. And that's and
that's wonderful for me because because there was a time,
like you said before, before Christ got a hold of
my heart that was really into like it was heavy metal,
but it was there was no redeeming language, you know,
there was no worshipful aspect to it. It was all very
worldly and and I would say angry, but but that's
(10:50):
you know, when when in my fitness journey. Being able
to take that music and put it under the dominion
of Christ and then and to enjoy that and to
enjoy us in my workouts was was a huge part
of working things out in and heart. While I was moving,
sounds like you had this, So I got to asked,
what are your favorite two songs to work out to
(11:11):
right now?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I like anything by David Crowder. Yeah, I still love
Toby Mack. We there there is a version of Jesus
Freak with Owl City, and I get that going. And
there's other girls my age and the class and say,
you're playing my jam.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah. So those are some old ones. Those are some
older ones. Let's see what else do I like? There
is some old family Force five that's fun. I like Disciple, Yeah,
some good ones. Brandon Lake. Yeah, I got some good
(11:57):
stuff with with the season that's coming up. I joke
and I'll say, this is the scariest song you're gonna
get from me. But we have we have a drumstick
workout to. I need a ghost, oh man. And that's fun.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, so my wife and I
do a lot of work with children's ministry, and U
we believe that the spirit of worship in our church
exists most purely in children, and so we we will
often you know, a lot of the songs that we
worship to with the kids are really high energy, and
(12:32):
we're jumping around and we're dancing and having a good
time and stuff. And I always pray, like, Lord, I
want you to imbue these kids with a spirit of
worship so that when they when they get older, they
don't become stuffy old adults who don't know how to
praise you. You're like, yes, I don't want to be here.
I'm going to worship like watermelon, watermelon. Do you ever
(12:53):
get that church like bubble gum.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Bubble gum water Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So so it's my heart that that, you know, we
see adults praising and worshiping in the same way that
the innocent and pure faith of young kids can do.
And it sounds like you guys do that in your
fitness classes. So when did you become a fitness instructor?
How long have you been doing this?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
I've been I started out as a spin instructor. I
loved spin. I can't dance, I don't have any coordination.
I felt a little awkward in like strength training classes.
So when I joined a gym, I just for the
heck of it. Tried a spin class, and I really
(13:38):
felt there's not a lot of attention on you as
an individual, not a lot of pressure to perform any
certain way. You just had to keep moving. Everybody was
concerned about their own self. They weren't looking at you.
And I really enjoyed it. And I joined a gym
(13:58):
and COVID happened, and one fella kept telling me you'd
be a good instructor. Let me train you. So I
learned a little, and then COVID happened, and some instructors
didn't come back. So they asked me to take a class,
the five point fifteen am class. Right, not a morning person,
but nobody else wanted the class. And just like I
(14:22):
don't miss an opportunity to talk, I also try not
to miss an opportunity to teach. So by then the
Lord had already been making a change in me, saying,
don't be fearful, don't be afraid. You don't have to
sit in the corner. You do have something to offer.
That's what I felt the Lord was saying. To me
(14:43):
and our gym had bought some new beautiful bikes with
these awesome computers in them, and they certified us in training,
so I felt like I was a little better equipped
then we had gone. So this was in twenty the
end of twenty twenty and UH COVID was going on.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
UH.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
My mom got sick and she passed very quickly. I
was working my son's school closes, my youngest son, he
goes to school. I homeschooled the other ones, and I
had gone back to work full time as a nurse
because they really needed us. And my mom got sick
(15:30):
and she she asked me, she said, will you quit
work and take care of me? And I said absolutely.
I have been blessed and privileged that my husband has
the Lord has provided, and my husband has agreed to
it that I keep a rather flexible schedule. He's always
(15:54):
traveled so and he's my biggest fan and my my
biggest supporter and far nicer than I am. But when
I when I want to do something, if you know,
if it's doable and it's and it's in it's right,
he'll do whatever he can. So so when my mom
asked me to stay home, and take care of her.
I said yes, so I quit work and she she
(16:18):
passed eight months later. And there were two things that
I had been wanting to do. I had gotten involved
in revelation wellness. Was very interested in their their approach
and their beliefs, and so I asked him if I
could become a trainer. And that was a gift he
(16:38):
gave me after my mom passed away, and it was
so it was so helpful to immerse myself in those lessons.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, perfect timing to work through the grief.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yes, yes, And I had been taking classes at Samford
University and their ministry training tension courses and it took
me six years. But about shortly after that I had
a little more time and I got my certificate in
(17:11):
Biblical studies in women's leadership. And to me, that all
tied together. Yes, it all tied together, the biblical knowledge
and then the fitness. So that was his gift to me.
So it was about that was in twenty twenty one.
(17:31):
My mom passed in April and I was certified that fall,
and I have really enjoyed it. Sometimes it's a little
bumpy trying to find out where I fit. I am
older I am usually off, yes, most times, the oldest
one in my class. They don't call me coach Kim,
they call me miss.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Kimpt I guess, I guess. So I have to tell
you a story real quick. My best client, my entire career,
and she's probably going to listen in on this. So
what's up, Katie? I love you. She's she I've been
working with her for over twelve years, and she's adopted
my kids as her grandkids and whatnot. She's in her
(18:14):
late sixties, she'll be seventy soon, and she is often
the oldest quote unquote in the class age wise. But
what's so powerful about it is is it gives her
such a such an air of authority in the fitness
space because obviously whatever she's doing is working for her,
(18:35):
like whatever she's eating, however she's moving, however she's orchestrated
her life. And I know for a fact that she's
a woman who juggles so many things. But there's just
so much strength and endurance both in her body and
in her mind that she has such an air of
authority over so many people's lives who will come to
(18:55):
her with questions or come to her with concerns and stuff,
and they know that that she's a she's a rock.
And so I'm going to speak that over you too.
What being the oldest in the class makes you a rock.
It's like proving to the world like I'm here. There's
no expenses for anybody else, you know, and like I'm
here and I'm doing my work and and I'm going
(19:15):
to lead you and coach you in that direction. So
I'm sorry they call you miss instead of coach us.
But but I'm just glad they call me. They call
it right there, right and and that's that's so, that's
so wonderful. So so thank you for being that. I
know it's not easy. I know it's not easy to
be that in the community, but thank you for being it.
(19:36):
It's necessary and good and God made you for that.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Oh, thank you, thank you. I was kind.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
So so uh, let's one piece of your story that
that's very difficult, and you kind of mentioned it just now,
But one piece of your story that's difficult is that
that God's used fitness to help you work through some
very intense grief. If I was reading your your biocorrectly,
you lost your mother, your mother in law, and your son,
(20:06):
and all three of those are terrible losses. Yes, And
I want to ask first, how has God used fitness
in your life to help you through grief? And then
I also want to ask how you've seen that play
out in the lives of people that you've coached. But
I'd like to start with you, if you're willing to
(20:26):
speak on it, Kim, how did God use fitness in
your life to help you work through grief?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Well? It makes me tired and it occupies my mind.
So my mind I can have those intrusive thoughts that
are a little hard to shake. It's been I suppose
my bio is a little bit misleading. My son passed
(20:55):
away in twenty eleven. He was sixteen. We used to
run together. We had a lot in common. We ran
my best time, which I'm not going to tell you
because it's still a terrible time. My best time for
the Burming the Mercedes half Marathon was when I ran
(21:15):
with him. Oh man, it was my most enjoyable, my
best time, my best recovery. He was twelve in the
half marathon.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yes, what a monster.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
My mother had a fit. My mom was an RN
and he started running with me when he was seven.
And let me say this for young moms working out
with your kids, best time to have a conversation. We're running, right,
he's in his early teens. We're running. We can't look
(21:51):
out of eye, so there's no awkwardness. We're running focusing
on not falling down, and we could have a great conversation.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
So I don't know. I don't know if this is
a male female difference, but I do know this about
men because I do a lot of ministry with men.
I do a lot of ministry with children, and I
have two sons, so I'm a boy dad. Men will
have intimate conversations shoulder to shoulder. Yeah, we don't. We
don't want to. We don't want to be sitting in
front of you over coffee eye to I mean, we can't.
It's possible, but you'll get a lot more out of somebody,
(22:22):
especially at a young you know, manchild. You're gonna get
a lot more out of them doing something, and they'll
be way more open, way more honest, way more forthcoming, curious,
all those things. Shoulder to shoulder. That's that's a that's
very well said boy. Mind So, and.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Having said that, with the homeschooling and with exercising together, baseball, soccer, frisbee.
I'm still I will never outgrow frisbee. That is just
so much silly fun.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Such a perfect game, is it not? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
And no my kids did yeah, uh, And that was
fun to watch sometimes sometimes it was cool if mom
sat on the side and let the kids play. I
didn't always like it, but but I'd sit out sometimes.
But when he passed, there are things that I was
(23:25):
so grateful I did. And that was was homeschool because
just by proximity and by time I knew him so well,
and the and the fitness together. And then we went
on a mission trip six months before he passed, so
(23:46):
to see him serve I mean, those are things that
that I guess if I hadn't had those, I wouldn't
know that I missed them. Sure, But having had that
time with him and those experiences fantastic memories. And just
like we need to know God's character to be certain of,
(24:11):
you know, of what he promises, knowing my son's characters
so well really helped me to process through that loss.
And there was a lot of unknowns. We don't know
how he died, and the Lord said, you will not
(24:32):
know because I knew Justin's character and because I know
God's character. Then I'm not saying I'm okay with that.
I'm just saying I accept that there are some things.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I won't know that you're able to have peace with that.
That's the thing about grief, right, Like you don't have grief.
Grief's interesting in that you can't. And I don't mean
this to sound heady. This is actually a very visceral thing.
You can't you can't place it to the side in
a healthful manner. It's something that has to be worked through.
It has it has to be wrestled with, It has
(25:07):
to be it has to come up in all of
its forms. Right. But but grief doesn't mean that you're
going to to wrestle as intensely your entire life through
through Christ, especially since we we as Christians, we don't.
We don't grieve as the rest of the world grieves.
We still grieve, but we grieve with hope and that
(25:28):
and that there's peace in that. There's there's peace in
the ability to struggle with to wrestle with grief, to
work through grief, and to come with peace. It doesn't
mean that you're okay with everything. It doesn't mean that
that your sunshine and rainbows galloping, you know, happily through
the meadows with no cares in the world. That's that's
(25:49):
not real life. But but to have peace for me,
that's the precursor of joy. If I can have peace,
then I can also find joy in strength and goodness
of God.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Well, and people would ask me, don't you want to know?
Don't you want to ask more questions? How can it
was in our house? He died in our house? How
can you stay in that house? We only moved two
years ago, so we stayed in the house a total
of twenty two years. Walked in and out of the
door where we found his body, and I kind of
(26:23):
felt that as a sort of a kick and Satan's
rear in because he didn't win. He didn't win. The
Lord used it for good. And so you're talking about
the grief process. So it's been fourteen years and this
(26:43):
afternoon I'll go to a grief share group, and yesterday
I went to counseling because I certain things will come up.
We're currently we have we're currently going through some hard
times with my husband's father. He's our only remaining parent,
and he's given us a really tough time. And when
(27:04):
I work as a nurse, I'm an I work on
an Alzheimer's unit.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Oh my goodness. So so you've seen it all.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yes, yes, but current situations have have just brought up
some things in me. And and so my my grief
share class a wonderful counselor who's who's on call. I
mean I might go months without seeing him, and I'll
(27:31):
call him up and say, you know, can I come in,
or can John come in? Or as my husband, sometimes
we drag my son Paul in. But so with the
fitness and the counseling and the availability of good pastors,
(27:52):
it seems like a long time. Fourteen years seems like
a long time, but it seems like yesterday. And I
don't put a timeline necessarily on on the you know,
the process or the steps. Sometimes I take a few
steps back, but.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, absolutely one. I think I think that I have
a I don't know why this is a picture in
my head, but I'm going to try to bring it home.
I have a what do we call them a red bud?
It's a red bud tree out here. Yeah, it's beautiful
little tree. Actually, but it likes to. It likes to
grow little sucker trees off the bottom. And every year,
(28:31):
multiple times in a year, I have to go out
and I have to have to find the sucker at
the root, chop that sucker off, because if you don't,
it will it will hurt your tree. It'll keep the
tree from from growing. And in the in the Christian life,
Paul says, don't let any roots of bitterness grow in you.
He says, don't let any roots of bitterness grow. Why
(28:51):
because it hurts the fruit hurts the fruit of the tree.
You bitter, bitter roots bring bitter fruits, and so it's
a it's not just grief. If you've wrestled with addiction
in your life, if you've wrestled with abuse or trauma,
if you've wrestled with those things, it's regular maintenance to
(29:11):
notice when roots spring up, suckers, and you get down
there and keep the keep the bitter roots from growing,
because because the fruit of your tree, of your life.
And I know this meta I'm not trying to carry
this metaphor too far, but Christ said you will know
them by their fruits, and and for for us as
(29:33):
as redeemed disciples, of Christ. I feel like that's that's
a necessary responsibility of maintenance in our life to say, hey, hey,
there's a root right there, let's take care of it.
Let's let's deal with that root. And and a lot
of times that does require us to bring in other
believers who can help us to manage that, to work
(29:53):
through that, to root it out and then move on
with with bearing good fruit in the world. And it
sounds like for me that metaphor makes sense. Does that
make sense to you, Kim.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
No, it made a lot of sense. It sure did.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
So. So I do want to ask some practical questions
because we've we've talked a lot about kind of the
why in your story, and thank you for being so
about your story, even painful things that that. You know,
there's probably somebody listening to this who's like, Okay, I
I've probably wrestled with some grief. I need to I
(30:31):
need to get some good Christian music. I need to
go work out, like I need to start start moving
my body and stuff. I can't. I can't say I'm
too old, miss Kim. Coach Kim says, I don't care
how old you are, Like, we got to do this
thing so so what when when you teach from an
instructor's perspective, when you teach, what are some of the
(30:51):
questions that that beginners or maybe people who are struggling
to keep this consistent in their life. What are some
of the questions they're bringing to you, and what are
some of the things that you're asking them to do?
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Well? I teach such a mixture of people. I will tonight.
My first class is a water aerobics and those are
mainly older people. And then I will go right from
there to a kickboxing class. Yeah, so much fun. We
(31:24):
work out a lot of frustrations. So what I get
a lot. I get a lot is I can't do that.
I'm not coordinated enough. I can't squat that low. I
can't do any more squats. I'm gonna fall over. I
get you know, So my my my thing to them
(31:47):
is that I like to tell them we we are.
We are in a practice here. If a doctor, a
doctor or a lawyer, he calls his business a practice, right,
he's always learning. You want your doctor always be learning? Right, Well,
so we are, we are the same. We need to
keep working on it, and I will I'll be trying
(32:09):
to do something requiring a little balance, and I'll tip
over a little bit. And I said, look at that.
I straightened myself back up, fixed my form, and I said,
every time you tip over a little bit or have
to put your other foot down, you have just strengthened
yourself real big about We talk a lot about function,
(32:32):
about mobility and mobility and preventing injury. We like to
add an everyday movement to something I'm teaching, Like we're reaching,
I'm getting something off my closet shelf. I want to
be able to reach for this, you know, and then
(32:53):
we're just gonna grab it and smash it on our knee.
But we're able to reach, getting down on the floor,
you know, and being able to get up. If it's
my older folks, we need to be able to play
on the floor with our grandkids. Absolutely, you need this
is this is This is really silly. But sometimes what
(33:16):
if you got to get away from something in a hurry,
What if you got to get underneath something? You know,
we need to be able to duck. We do like
Bob and weave when we're boxing, Yes, even sideways as
a squad carrying a load, I said, grab, grab something
a little bit heavier. When we go to grab our weights,
(33:36):
I said, think about grabbing something a little bit heavier.
We're going to be mindful of how that feels. But
I said, what if we just you know, get some
good posture and we hold something heavy and we walk
across that room and that way when you're bringing in
your groceries or you're you know, you're helping something around
(33:56):
the house, you know, helping your husband lift something. I
do a lot of lifting. We se right, but you know,
I want to be able to do that. We want
to be able to do that, and I want the
young people to know that there these are healthy practices
now that will make them feel better later. And I
(34:17):
think right now it's very important that we are mindful
of what we can do for ourselves to prevent needing
too much care later. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Well, so I want to stop down on that. I
think that's so important. And you can speak about that
with authority as a nurse, because you see, you see
things that happen to individuals when their capacity for independence degenerates.
And the research is very clear. We don't exactly know
(34:54):
all the causes of Alzheimer's, but we do know what
helps and we also know what is inversely correlated, meaning
if you do these things, you have a very very
low risk of Alzheimer's, and if you do have Alzheimer's,
your risk of losing all of your capacity to walk,
for instance, you can actually you can actually keep that
(35:15):
from happening to you, right, And these are neurological functions.
As you were speaking, I was thinking about how in
youth we take for granted all the things that our
body can do without us having to think about it, right,
And that's such a wonderful blessing, Like I'm so glad
my ten year old doesn't have to worry about being
able to bend over and tie his shoes without hurting
(35:37):
his back. You know, it'd be a terrible world if
all the kids suffered in the same day that somebody
in their fifties or sixties might who is taking for
granted bending down and tying shoes. Right, But at the
same time, in youth, we have the opportunity to learn
how to train those things so that we can continue
enjoying those things in the ages where we don't get
(36:00):
to take that branded anymore. As we say, you don't
use it, you lose it, right, and the neurological process
is age related. Cyclopedia after age thirty, you're going to
lose muscle tissue every year you don't train it. That's
just a fact. Super sorry. And then similarly, our neurological system,
our brain, our spine, talking to our muscles. As you said, coordination,
(36:24):
We will lose the ability to do different things if
we don't train them. But the good news is God
made our body such that it's trainable, it's adapt if
you practice these things. I'm working with a guy right now.
When we first started working together, he's in his mid sixties.
When we first started working together, he could not walk
down my driveway forty yards. He couldn't walk down my
(36:46):
driveway without significant pain. And then he had accumulated this
movement pattern where he was shuffling his feet. Do you
know what I'm talking about, where you drag your heels
rather than push off your toe when you look forward. Okay,
that's actually correlated with Alzheimer's. By the way, when you
start shuffling your feet, that's actually a decent symptom that
your neurological system is tending toward dementia, which is not good.
(37:10):
And so we've been working together for two years. He
can squat. Now, he can row, he can put his
hands over his head, he can hike three miles, right.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, it's so. It's so wonderful. It's so wonderful. And
what he would tell you is he thought all of
that was out of his he couldn't do it anymore.
Like two years ago, he would have said, no, I
can't do those things anymore. I can't do this. I
can't do that. You know, there's too much pain. My
body doesn't work that way. I can't move. And now
after practicing, and I mean he's not like jumping over
(37:42):
small toddlers in a single bound or anything, but he's
seen significant improvements in his coordination and his strength. And
what's so cool as the world got a lot bigger, right, yes,
Like it's not just your house and the one place
you drive to, the world gets a lot bigger. It's like, Hey,
I can go for a hike, I can go fishing.
(38:03):
I can get in the floor with my grandkid. He
didn't have a grandkid two years ago. Now he does.
He's like, I can hold my grandkid and it doesn't hurt. Great,
it's so good. Yeah, and so and so it's so
it's so powerful what you're saying that that whether you're
old or young the idea and old's a relative term.
I hate saying that. I like to think of it
(38:24):
as an older and I think of it as an
energy wisdom spectrum. You trade the energy of youth for
the wisdom of of not youth. And but but you,
that doesn't mean you get to break down, though. You
have the opportunity to take the body God's given you
and to train it. It takes some intentionality, kind of
like the Bitter Roots. They take intentionality Christian walk too,
(38:49):
but it takes intentionality. But if you do it, the
body adapts, and it's just amazing. It's amazing. So bless you,
and thank you for what you're doing with individuals to
do that, and and for for just speaking that, like, hey,
you don't have to be able to jump in this class,
but I want you to be able to pick up
your groceries. That's non negotiable.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yes, yes, we've got When we do a hip hinge,
we're stepping over the dog gate, you know, at the
dog gate. Yeah, and we could do a hinge where
we're pushing the car door shut with our with our
backside because yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Well, the vast majority of injuries don't happen in a workout.
They don't like if you're doing a workout safely. It's
a practice, you know. I'm intentional. I'm thinking about the
injuries happen in everyday life when we try to do
something that either we weren't prepared to do, we shouldn't
have done yet, or have lost the ability to do
but we didn't know.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, well that's what we say too. We're working out
in here so that out there we you know, we're
better capable and we caught we we you know we Yeah,
I think you said you use the word opportunity. Yeah,
and we we like to say it's our get to
I don't have to be here, and I'll I don't
(40:03):
care how big my class is. I'll tell them I said,
I am you didn't have to be here, you know,
I am so glad that you came. I'm humbled. I
am humbled every time somebody comes to my class because
I am I am so flawed. I mess up a lot.
I'm you know, not as seasoned as some of the
(40:25):
as the some of the other instructors. But I'm just
real honest with them, you know, like, I'm sorry, I
screwed that up. We were doing this fun little squat
thing where we were going in a circle. We were
doing a tobata and oh, some of them loved it,
some of them hated it. Somebody never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
What is that style?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
I know, Yeah, but that's another thing. We try different
We try different things. I think, as well as the
physical part of it, I just think that learning new
things keeps your brain sharp and it staves off that
that memory decline, that cognitive thing. So when I work
(41:10):
as a nurse, the reason I like memory care and
assisted living it's more relational. I've always done long term
care and it seems like it's just a lot of
pushing meds. But in this, the facility I've been at
now for about eleven years, it's more relational and I
(41:33):
get to spend more time talking with people and learning
about them. I love that. But once a month on
Sunday after church, my husband goes with me and when
we exercise with them, and and they they love it. Yes,
you get some drumsticks out and they they love it.
(41:56):
They love to move, they love the music. We might
just be sitting in our chair, but we're dancing.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, yeah, and it's nice. We had my my youngest
he's six now, but when he was three, we were
going through uh, my my nana, well it was my
wife's grandmother, but we all called her nana. She she
went to assisted care for dementia for a time after
(42:22):
her husband passed. And uh, and we spent a lot
of time there, would go and and but but you know,
get a three year old and an assisted care place,
like he's he doesn't sit still, No, he's all over
the place, right, So.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
They probably liked it.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
They loved it. Yeah, he was the life of the party. Yeah.
He would bring balloons and blow him up and then
like he'd run around hitting it, and then like everybody
would join in. Here. You had like a like so
much funny ladies and dudes like hitting the thing waiting
for him to hit it back to him, and like
like it was like they were all exercising men. There
were squatting and standing and reaching and all kinds of stuff.
(42:58):
And I was like, man, lookt him go, he's running
his own exercise class. You don't even know it.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
How about a little bit of movement will make anybody
feel better.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yes, you know, exactly right, that's exactly right. It just
God made us that way. God made us embodied, embodied people.
You know, Jesus. Jesus's ministry was moving all the time.
He was always going from place to place. He wasn't
just sitting on a chair somewhere and everybody coming through.
He was always moving, walking on water and walking to
(43:31):
Samaria and walking up the mountain, you know. And that
I believe. Obviously I'm biased, but I believe that that ministry,
the ministry of today, especially with so many advances in
technology and people being so stuck in the virtual world,
that that the ministry of today has to be embodied,
(43:52):
that has to incorporate the body, the body of individuals
so that they can feel it, they can see it,
they can and they can reap the benefit in the
body and not be separated from that. I think it's
extremely important today.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
And it's not that's a discussion we've been having at
Revelation Wellness lately is about fitness in the church or
or talk of the body in the church. A lot
of people don't want to talk about that. In the
church setting. On Tuesday mornings, I teach a Bible study,
(44:30):
and we go in thirty minutes early just for a
little bit of movement. And sometimes it's just walking around
the gym. Sometimes it's a little stretching. Sometimes we get
out our drumsticks. But it's a really nice way to
start a Bible study.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, yeah, I do the same when when I'm ministering
with men, oftentimes they meet me at the park, don't
eat breakfast. We're going to be fastest, And they're like, wait,
can't we just go to breakfast. I'm like, no, We've
had plenty to eat. We're gonna we're going to fast
and pray together.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
I love that. I listen, you said that in a
podcast I listened to. It might have been with the
one Yeah, but you had said come fasted, and I
was just thinking about it. I guess we were talking
about you were talking about food in itself. Everything does
not have to revolve real food.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Sure does not. Sure does not. In fact, uh Christ
said this is my body broken for you, like like
he's he's the sustenance. And that's the thing. You know,
I don't need to talk about fasting here, although I've
done some done some work on it and make sure
that that my community understands the heart and spirit of fasting,
but but as a as a body, when we learn
(45:46):
how to hunger for the right things, he said, blessed
those who hunger and thirst righteousness, for they shall be
filled right in our day and age. It's it's so
easy to fill that hunger with all kinds of other stuff,
Like we can we can fill that hunger with mindless scrolling.
We can fill that hunger with video games and movies,
and we can fill that hunger with with potato chips,
(46:07):
you know, like we can fill that with so many things.
But what's cool. I love this for men and men
and women's bodies are different, but but I love this
with men specifically. Look, if you have a problem and
we're going to work it out together and we're going
to seek God together, We're going to be hungry while
we do it. We're jointly going to be hungry for
the right thing, so that so that we can we
can do that thing with our with our whole heart
(46:29):
and our whole mind. It's it's always been kind of
strange to me to sit down in front of somebody
at breakfast talking about a problem. Oh, you stuff your face.
It's like, what like this is a problem, but I
feel very satisfied and satiated in this moment. Isn't bacon
so tasty? Like what I feel like, We're not uncomfortable
enough here to deal with the issue.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
You're oh, oh, that is so good. We need to
be comfortable being uncomfortable. We need to normalize some suffering.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
I think, Amen, that is so good. Yeah, that was James, right,
Take joy, dear brothers, when you face trials and many kinds,
for suffering produces endurance and character and hope. Actually, I
think I melded Romans five and j But they're saying
the same thing, like Paul and James are saying with
the same spirit, like it's okay, It's okay to be uncomfortable.
(47:19):
It's ok to in fact, in fact, some of that
is part of the maturation process of a disciple, is
to go through some hard things.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yes, Romans. One of the verses that kind of our
family embraced was Romans at eighteen, where I consider these
present trials nothing compared to the glory revealed in Christ Jesus,
Amen and Isaiah sixty one to three about beauty for ashes,
(47:49):
and you know, there's just something so much better for us,
and if we would just be patient and rely on
God in those tough times and get to know him,
get to know him. After my son passed away, I
could not get enough of the scriptures. Just before twenty
(48:10):
twenty is when I went through training to be a
precept instructor. It's an abductive form of Bible study, and
it essentially you use the word to explain the word
you don't. There's not Maybe when you get way into
the study, they suggest you can look at a commentary
(48:30):
if you want to, But by then you are so
consumed with the cross references and the context, and you
know the literal meaning of the word and not my
own thoughts. By then, I've let the Holy Spirit reveal
to me truth. I don't need to know what man
has to say.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Then, yes, you know, there was a there was a
time in my life where I would have told you,
if you pin me down, I would have told you
I was an atheist. I wasn't a militant atheist. I
was I was somebody who believed that faith was. The
short way to put it is is that that faith
was beautiful, but it was naive and so so for me,
you know, I didn't want to attack anybody's faith, but
(49:10):
for me, I couldn't. I couldn't wrap my head around
you know, big Man in the sky and so so.
And obviously that's not how I feel or think now,
but I remember there was a time in my life,
even even with that belief, that when I picked up
scripture and I stopped listening no offense to the peace
the pastors or preachers. I stopped listening to sermons and
(49:31):
I just read about Jesus. Yes, and I'm going to
get a little emotional talking about this, But when when
I got to where I could, I could, I could
read it, and it was like I could, I could
taste the salty air while he was he was teaching,
and I could. I could hear his voice and I could,
I could, I could picture the love and intention in
(49:53):
his eyes when he's like, hey, I just want you
to follow me, Like that's all I want from you,
That's why I've done this. And he came to life
for me in such a powerful way that it was
so uh, it was so deep and true. That I
had heard so many other things from so many other
(50:13):
people about who God was and how he did things
and blah, blah blah, and what to think about this?
And and I had read scripture and thought of it
like a like a like an action plann or instruction booklet. Right,
but but the Holy Spirit uses the word of God
to bring him to life every well, with every word.
(50:36):
He can literally bring it to life with with every word.
And if you'll, if you'll read, I had a had
a friend of mine I was leading through this process
who's who's come to come to Christ since then, which
which is so makes me so happy. But I was like, hey,
I need you to get a Bible that doesn't have
study notes and doesn't have the headings, and just to
(50:58):
read what it says. Just read it, just think about it,
just pray about it. Not that those things are bad.
Sometimes those are really helpful things to teach you what
to how to understand Greek words and that sort of thing, right, right,
But don't make this such a heady thing. I ask
God to show you who Jesus is and then go
from there. And it was a powerful experience for him,
(51:21):
as it was for me too. So thank you for
being a part of Precepts ministries. It's actually a I
remember it from when my mom was like like in
her early twenties. Yep, going through precepts. Minister. It's such
a colored pencils with her colored pencils.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yes. So when I came to Christ that I mentioned
when I was twenty five and I was not a believer.
My husband's from Georgia. I'm from Michigan. His family sends
him up up to Michigan or well, he goes up
there for some training. He's there for five years, and
he meets me. I'm divorced, I smoke. I'm from Michigan.
(52:01):
His parents say, don't bring back, no Yankee. Wife brings
me back and she introduces me to Precept. I'm not
at all what she wanted for her son, but she
welcomed me and she loved me. She loved me so well.
(52:23):
And my husband introduced me to Christ. My mother in
law led me to Christ and introduced me to Precept.
So I was twenty five when I started taking it,
and I was fifty fifty two when I became an instructor.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
That's awesome. That's awesome. A test to the power of
a strong, loving woman's faith to umbrella another young woman.
And then also it looks like you get to you
get to live that out too.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yes, yes, I have a lot of her study and
her notes. When I did, I taught Revelation. Uh, and
I still don't know anything about it. It's too deep,
but I have it was so good. It took us
two years to go through it, the little group I have.
But I had these big charts that my mother in
(53:17):
law had made and it was so beautiful to tack
those up on the wall. And so we're exercising in
that room, right, and then we sit down and we
read Revelation and my mother in law's notes are on
the wall, and there is a legacy to be had absolutely, families,
and we need to we need to pass that love
for God's word down.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Amen. Amen, that's that's actually a command in Deuteronomy. Yes, agains,
because how are they going to know that I in
the Red Sea unless you tell them that's that's such
a that's such a big thing. And then we have
the opportunity, I mean, we have we have testimonies, we
have a testament of God's goodness that we've lived through,
and we have the opportunity to uh to teach our
(53:59):
kids that things, which requires some uncomfortable conversations. But yes,
they're either going to hear it from you or they're
going to go learn the hard way right right now now, Kim,
I could talk to you all day, and I'm so
grateful for this conversation coming up on Enjoy Yeah, Sa same.
So I would love to cover you in prayer, cover
the ways that you minister in prayer and h and
(54:21):
also to close this off with prayer. So if you
would bow your head with me, sure, Father, God, thank
you so much for this day. Thank you for the
opportunity to meet my sister Kim and to have this conversation. God,
I pray it's been a blessing to those who are
listening and watching. Got to pray a special hedge of
protection around Kim and her ministry with fitness, but also
(54:46):
also your Holy Spirit's energy and peace and love. As
she shows up at work as a nurse. I know
she does such important work, bearing her own burden will
and bearing the burdens of the families that she touches
through working with well your children whose minds are deteriorating here.
(55:08):
I pray your grace is sufficient for her, that she
is a light in a dark place, and that your
love shines through so it doesn't feel dark at all.
I also pray that you will sustain her body so
that she can continue being an instructor, whether she's Miss
Kim or Coach Kim, that she can help other people
to be independent in you until you call them home.
(55:35):
God bless him and bless this conversation in Jesus' name. Amen, Amen,
thank you, Yes, thank you so much. And I would
encourage our listeners. I'm going to put some links in
the show notes. You invited people to connect with you
on Facebook, whether you're a local or virtual, and then
also you provided me a link to Revelation Wellness and
(55:55):
some of the resources that we're inspiring to you. So
I'm going to put those links in the show notes.
But for the listeners, guys, this has been Coach Alex
van Helton on the Faithful Fitness Podcast. Thank you so
much for joining us today. Until next time, you guys
know what I'm going to say, Train hard, but pray harder.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
Hey, if this episode helps you, jare it with someone
who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe
and leave us a raving review so more people can
find Faithful Fitness. Oh and my dad's new devotional is
almost out now. You can grab a copy for yourself
and then join our free community at Better Daily by
(56:38):
clicking on the links in the show notes below. We
all have a cross to carry, but it's lighter when
we do it together, so check out both links in
the show notes. Don't be a big well Bob, just
do it until next time. Don't forget Train hard and
pray even harder.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
Took the post
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