We recently received this email from someone in our FAITH RXD community. We’ve kept their identity private, but they were more than happy for us to share their story if it meant it would encourage someone else.
We are so honored and excited about what God is doing here. If you have a story you’d like to share, please reach out to us at in**@fa******.org.
Hi FAITH RXD,
I wanted to write to you to share my story and how you have had an impact in my life.
I started CrossFitting in 2011. I’d never stepped in a gym before and got peer pressured into trying it out. To say it changed my life is an understatement.
Physically, mentally, spiritually.
I had been in full time ministry and had lost my position and was feeling LOST. This new found community was a game changer because I was able to begin to KNOW the lost outside of the “stage” or platform of full time ministry.
A year into my CrossFit journey I felt the Lord calling me to start my own gym in the smaller town neighboring where I was and to use it to create culture.. if I was responsible for the culture then I could set the tone of the environment and make it a place for people to come to know Christ! I was overwhelmed with all of the new connections of the physical and spiritual that He was showing me.
I opened my gym in 2013…
I started slow with the plan to affiliate once I reached the ability to pay for it.
The gym exploded. People came and came and came and they heard the Good News!! They came to church with me and asked questions.. it was a miracle!! We were growing in fitness and in our faith.. TOGETHER. It was amazing.
This was a very small town and I was single at the time going at it totally solo.. I was nervous and learning as I went about business.. I was just doing what God had told me to do.. I was purely walking by faith.
2 years in, a couple from the town approached me with a business deal. And in a weak vulnerable time, I gave in and “partnered”..
and what had been God’s story, started to get re-written by greed with someone else’s pen.
Longest part of the story short… I lost everything… they weren’t true to what they presented initially and after one short year of finally being an official affiliate.. I drove home, never to return to my beloved gym. They had all but bankrupted it and were trying to cover for themselves by framing me as the fault.
I spiraled into DEEP depression.
I isolated myself and refused to leave the house, for months. My husband begged and encouraged me to work out at home and set up equipment for me and everything.. but all I could do was cry every time I touched the barbell.
I blamed myself for messing up God’s work! I couldn’t handle the pain of thinking that a miracle was RUINED.
I gained so much weight…and I just SAT in our home!
My husband didn’t give up on me..
he stumbled across you guys on social media and encouraged me to look you up… (this was very close to the first time you all started posting that Becky was severely sick and you all were praying for her healing.)
At first.. I was ANGRY .. “WHY didn’t I know about this organization BEFORE I lost [my gym]! Maybe they could have helped me.. given me some wisdom .. or just encouraged me to keep the course before the other people took over my vision! They are trying to do the SAME thing I was!!” Is all
I could think.
But then, with some time, I was filled with HOPE! You see, I had started to believe that maybe I had never even heard the Lord at all! Maybe it was my own idea and it failed because it wasn’t of Him? Maybe I didn’t hear God say faith and fitness go together, maybe that was a silly whim or foolish to believe people would “fall for that” and it was all my fault that it didn’t work…
BUT NO!! No, He said….
I DID hear Him and His other children are hearing the same message! And that’s how we know things are from Him.. He asked the Father that we would be one in Him and so He puts His heart and mind in ours.. and when He does .. it looks the same..
I saw my dreams being realized in YOUR posts.
I can’t even put into words you guys… just HOW MUCH HEALING following you all has given to my broken heart!!
I see a people with the same vision, the same clear focus, and determination and it IS of HIM!! It DOES work and CAN work.. CrossFit and Jesus DO go together!!
And I didn’t lose the gym because I didn’t hear the Lord.. I lost it because satan was trying to win and the Lord was rescuing me from the evil that was going to follow my exit.
When news that Becky had passed away came out.. though I had only been reading and researching about her for just a short time… I felt compelled to fight to reclaim my fitness and reclaim my ability to coach and share Jesus through CrossFit. I got up and praise God, picked up that barbell in my backyard and fought!
Today, I am coaching at another gym, in another state, and telling people about Jesus and His love with full confidence that I didn’t lose my calling. And I am so thankful.
Thank YOU for your support to those of us who are fighting to keep going, by being BOLD with your faith and continuing this ministry!
My husband and I still dream of one day having a place of our own again.. maybe.. or even eventually having somewhere we could start a FAITH RXD chapter…(we’ve yet to live close enough to a chapter to join one, and we have been moving around for him to finish ministry school, we can’t wait to become more a part of you guys!)
Let me tell you, I wept during the latest podcast with Kelly Barcol’s interview!!! PRAISE GOD!!
So with that story.. I just say .. THANK YOU again and again for what you are doing.
Keep on keeping on, friends!!
Love,
K.
