Box it off!

This last year has been a year of change for me and my family.  For a while we had been talking about paying off our debt, but not doing anything about it.  6 months ago, due to a crisis, we discovered that we were 1 of the many Americans living paycheck to paycheck.  This crisis caused us to take action.  To date, we have $1500 in savings, have paid off about $10,000.00 in debt and will be debt free around September…paying off $23,000.00 total.  6 months after that, we will have nearly $15,000.00 in savings as an emergency fund.  We’ve done the work, God has been faithful in providing for us, and Dave Ramsey supplied the plan.

I also committed to daily reading God’s Word at the beginning of the year.  I’m not perfect with it, but I have been consistent and God is working in me through this discipline.

The third area of change for me has been my health.  I was about 235 pounds when I graduated high school, now, sadly I am at 342 pounds.  I thought about joining a gym, but the up-front fee, the contract commitment, and the self-motivation I would need don’t appeal to me much (…I would predict a month of use and about 11 months of no shows).  So, the solution:  boxing!  This past Tuesday was my first class with Paulie Ayala (2-time world champion boxer and passionate follower of Jesus…little guy…big heart).  It’s circuit-style training that incorporates cardio, calesthenics, 5 pound dumbbells while doing an assortment of exercises, punching bags, gettin’ in the ring with the mits.  It’s killing me, but I know the investment I am making now will pay off huge dividends in the future!