My two year old is a finicky eater, and gets antsy during any meal many times, but he is learning how to sit (and hopefully eventually eat!) and reaches out his hands to hold ours when we say the blessing. He usually whispers something that includes “Jesus” and then ends with a hearty “Amen!” after my husband or I finish praying. Its pretty special, even though I know right now it is just mimicry.

I am glad for husbands like yours and mine who are happy to make time in their schedules to spend time with the kids so we can go work out, (as much as I wish it were just shopping or coffee time, working out is something that needs to be a priority for me right now… I have this baby weight gone but I still have several pounds of weight from my first that never wanted to leave:-)

Of course we’re still friends! I’m sorry you felt like I was putting words in your mouth. That wasn’t my intention. Thank you again for all your thought provoking comments.

It’s been great to hear from you again! Thanks for your comments.

I think I need to clarify the whole gym thing. There is nothing fundamentally sinful about going to a gym. There are lots of things associated with some gyms that are not good, but the existence of those problems does not mean that gyms are out of the question for all Christians under all circumstances.

For example, you could point out the problem of immodesty and body image obsession that plagues so many gyms. This is very bad, but it is a problem with immodesty and body image obsession, not gyms. As it turns out, the gym I go to, Curves, is only for women and caters to middle aged and retired clients. There is almost no body image obsession and very little immodesty, much, much less than at the grocery store. Most ladies don’t even bother with make-up, let alone get crazy about needing to be perfectly toned.

You could also argue that gyms are bad because women leave their children in the care of other people to go to them. This could really be a problem. A dear cousin of mine quit her gym membership because her baby was so miserable in the childcare room (and if you’ve read my blog long enough, you know how I feel about childcare). But this is a problem with childcare, not with gyms. In my case, my children are home with their Daddy when I go to the gym, so this is not an issue for us.

You could say that women do not need “me time,” or should not be away from their families. And I am certainly very leery of seeking after away time too much. I think that families should be together as much as possible. However, the problem here is the desire to be away from your family, not the gym itself. In my case, the gym is the ONLY thing I do away from my family, and I’m not doing it because I want to “get away” but because I believe it’s important to health to get exercise, and buying my own equipment in not very convenient for our family given our extremely limited space.

You could say that if a woman is lonely or wants to be a witness that there are many more wholesome places to get friends, or more convenient mission fields than the local gym. And this is certainly true. However, this does not preclude going to the gym to exercise and them being friendly and a good witness while you’re there since that’s the Christian thing to do in all environments. And this is exactly what I’m trying to do. I’m not going there specifically to meet people, although I do meet a lot of people. I’m going because I want to be a good steward of the body God has given me, to try to maintain a healthy weight, good cardiovascular health, and muscle tone to support my joints as I bear children.