🔵 By Steven Newell. Photo by lauragrafie.
Why faith and fitness?
I wanted to write so I can complain! Just freaking kidding! To keep it real, it’s about how I come to survive, live, and thrive while living on death row. If anyone has reason to complain and be mad at the cards dealt, it’s me. I should be hating God and definitely questioning His existence. And fitness? Why? I’m going to be executed so eat up the honey buns and nachos and just kick back watching movies all day and night. The truth is, I did just that. It took 8 years of self-hate for my mistakes before I confronted God and blamed Him. With failed attempts at changing myself thru various religions and practices, I had a divine experience with Jesus Christ that left me changed and felt forgiven. You see, for the first 8 years I lived with such unforgiveness toward myself, I tried pulling my appeals to go thru with my sentence.
I learned what the difference is between regret and remorse. You have heard it said that inmates are just sorry they got caught, right? Well the difference is I didn’t regret where I was. I felt pain and torment for the pain I caused others and ultimately the life lost. That is by far the hardest thing I have to live with. So for the first 8 years I ate my hurt in junk food and hated myself. Man let me tell you, this Jesus thing is real and has nothing to do with jail house religion. I needed a savior and He’s it. He filled my heart with forgiveness and love, and joy and peace. I know a lot of people will disagree but that’s OK. That don’t take away from me.
Fitness is a lifestyle for me. Before my faith encounter I would work out but it was for show and intimidation. The typical prison mindset, right? The biggest guy, the knuckle head is the big guy on the yard. Man that shit is stupid! It fed the anger and aggression and just made things worse inside me. When I became a Christian, I stopped everything. I didn’t work out for a whole year and just studied a lot. The Bible, Hebrew and Greek, science and theology. Then when I got back to working out, I studied everything from body-building to Yoga, to cross-fit and power-lifting.
Over the past 10 years I’ve put into practice different methods for working out and have done it all. Now, I refine my knowledge of the anatomy and cellular structure of the body to best eat and work out to achieve my goals faster and more efficient. I’ve been locked up since 2001 and still sit on Arizona’s death row.
Yet, I’m living to the best me I can and reach everyone I can on what ever level I can to bring about positive change in them so that they may do the same with those around them and even with their families. Living to have some positive ripples in my life and not just negative ones and pain. I can’t change what I did or take it back, but I can choose to make a difference in peoples lives I can reach.
That’s what you can expect from Faith and Fitness.
Any topical questions and comments are welcome.
God bless and flex those gains!