It all started as a kid on the monkey bars.  You know the bar — the one just a little out of reach.  You do a slight little jump, grab hold with no problem (much like a skilled and graceful gymnast) and then just hang there because you’re not strong enough to pull yourself up.  Oh, how I wanted to pull myself up, but the upper body strength was just not there.  So I did the next best thing.  I learned to turn a flip and jump off so I wouldn’t look dumb just hanging there.

All these years that bar has eluded me.  I walk past the chin up bar and want so bad just to reach up and grab a chin just for grins.  I put it on my bucket list several years ago and have even devoted gym time training for it.  I’ve done countless assisted chin ups, lat pull downs, inverted rows, jump and pull ups off the bosu ball, etc, but all to no avail.  The bar was always just out of my reach.  I had pretty much just pushed that goal to the back burner thinking that maybe someday I’d come back to it.  It hasn’t been my focus in quite a while.  But then yesterday as I was in the weight room preparing for my workout and shooting the breeze with my husband (AKA: witness), I looked up and saw the bar.  It called to me and taunted as usual.  On a whim I jumped up like many times before preparing to just hang, but I didn’t just hang.  I started going up.  About half way up I realized this was really happening.  I even stalled in unbelief for a split second or two.  My husband said that my eyes got real big.  I couldn’t believe it.  The strength was there.  I was at the very least going to look that bar eye to eye but I didn’t, I looked over the bar.  My chin cleared.  Victory where and when I had least expected it came my way!

One would think I could now just check it off my list, put it out of mind and go on about my life — Wrong!  It just added fuel to the flame.  I now want more than one in a row — maybe 5 or even 10.  I want to be able to do the harder wide grip chin up.  I now have new goals.

This is a journey, isn’t it?  You can’t stand still on a journey.

“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”  –Philippians 3:14