Today was another session with Son Do.
As I laced up my shoes, I thought of what I could change and what I had no control over and couldn’t change.
I decided to focus only on what was present and happening. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not even a hour away or before.

When he strapped the belt around my waist so I could feel myself pinch and release during squats and lunges, the words of Maya Angelou came to mind.

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will always remember how you made them feel”

During training, Son made me feel capable, strong, steady, and he made me laugh as we joked.

I am not the same woman I was 6 weeks ago, and I’m going to be a different woman in 6 more weeks and another woman in 6 months.

I am becoming. Less and more all at the same time.

This is what God does. He placed Son Do in my path 2 years ago so we could meet and he could watch me from a distance.
In April i got a message from him, simply offering to train me with a rope to see if that would help my body reconnect in ways it was missing.
I did not hesitate when he offered to come to my home.

I have s great little gym.
I know my body. I’m a bodyworker and I know my strengths and weaknesses.

One of my weaknesses is also my strength- I can shut everything else out and only focus on my workouts but I was getting nowhere with only myself- spinning my wheels- literally- doing 10,000 meters on the cycle and not seeing my balance improve enough.

I was frustrated and missing out and one of the hardest parts was that I felt people were underestimating me because I was limping instead of charging forward with grit and grace, like I always had before.

I felt strong, but didn’t look strong to people that just glanced or read my stories and thought, “Oh, she used to be so fit and strong and now…. Wait and see”

So people have waited- waited to come see me for the work I do and waited to see if I’ll regret my choices, others waited to see me fall on my face so they could say, ‘I told ya so,’ and still others waited until it was “better” for them or for me, I’m not exactly sure.

When your half deaf, it’s a little different. Sometimes people expect less and sometimes more. Rarely do they adjust to the deaf person, but they sure expect the deaf to adjust to them.

I say this because I’ve worked with personal trainers for decades. Some women like to shop, I like to workout with a trainer.

In all these years, I’ve adapted, adjusted, read minds, lips, body language.

Sometimes I’ve made a fool out of myself, other times I’m pretty sure the trainers felt like fools.

But this is the first time a trainer has made absolutely certain that understand the why and the how of everything I’m doing by speaking into Ava which is the Audio Visual App for people like me that just can’t catch everything spoken to them without a little help.

So between super sets, i had asked him if he knew of Maya Angelou, the poet i love and he shook his head ‘no’ until i begin to quote one of her poems that I have carved into my soul and then his eyes lit up and he shook his head. ‘YES! YES!”

I was actually thinking of another poem, another favorite one she had written because that’s how I feel right now.

“Just like moons and just like suns
With the certainty of the tides
Just like hopes springing high
Still I’ll rise”

Nothing ever surprises God- not in your life or mine ( Lysa TerKeurst) but I am tickled to pieces at how He works things out for His Glory and my good, day after day, step after step, word after word.

I will rise and I’ll be praising Him!

As the workout ended and Son was about to leave, I turned to him with tears in my eyes to tell him how much I had needed this workout session because yesterday my Aunt Judy went to Glory. She went without us seeing each other for years, she went knowing I loved her but also shutting me out.

I am heartbroken but still I will rise. I will praise God for what I did get- messages through Facebook after 3 years of nothing. That was an answered prayer and when I get to heaven, she’ll just have to scoot over and let me love on her anyways.