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Muscles and bones make the human life we live possible. People who do not have use of muscles and joints are thoughtlessly called (vegetables) and none of us wants to be in a vegetative state. We take precautions even to the point of having legal documents drawn up: “in case of coma, do not resuscitate.”

On the other hand, in the recent Olympics we enjoyed the beauty and artistry of pure strength as the athletes with gleaming muscle and strong healthy bones, lept, swam, ran, and cycled across our screen in absolute wonder and majesty!

I would love for you to remember when you were in your peak body. Were you an athlete? How did you use your God-given gift of strength and power?

Did you comprehend how absolutely amazing your body was?

Likely not, as you have never known anything different.

I love being an athlete. When I was young, I really didn’t think about athletics, I thought about training, the skill, the camaraderie, and the sheer joy of running, skiing, skating, and playing ball.

In high school, I was a powerhouse. I competed routinely in the 440-yard race in track and field, cross-country running and skiing, and was a red-cross-certified swimmer. I could even do back flips off the high diving board.

I remember being completely fearless in my body and ran for the joy of running. I enjoyed skating on ice for the aesthetic beauty of the dance and the thrill of the twirl. I was “all in” when it came to enjoying the body I had been gifted.

Lately, I have been hanging around young people who use their body this way and I realized I had lost the ‘bar’ from which to measure the joy of a youthful, healthy body. With this in mind, I am back into my youthful activities, pacing back into a much more vibrant lifestyle.

I’m loving my workouts. After repelling down a sheer rock face a couple of months back where I got pretty bruised up and broke my toe, I decided it was time to return to the youthful muscle strength I enjoyed in my teens. Each day is an adventure in training and, of course, shooting gold light into my muscles for help gets me there faster. I am in dance aerobics, lifting small weights, practicing yoga, and, now something super fun I forgot I loved; swimming and ice-skating.

In my morning swim I do forty laps, followed by some underwater spins and somersaults, a backwards dolphin move, and maybe swimming under water. I even started diving. Being in the water is a major breakthrough, because many years ago while being treated for cancer, I had doctors tell me I should never swim again. The water wasn’t clean enough and I could not fight off any infections. Their reasoning was that having treated me for three years on antibiotics, and everything else they could think of to help me, I had been put in a weakened immune state.

Did someone tell you not to use your body in some way?

That it’s not lady like or you should act your age? Did you begin to have an achy joint or an injury and take it as a sign you should back down on your activities?

If so, I challenge you to do a big clearing of your timeline and all the slow downs that got you to where you are now.  Next pace back into your blissful youthful body with vim, vigor and enthusiasm. Because my friend, “it ain’t over till it’s over.”