What does ‘being’ strong mean? That depends on who you ask. If you walk into a weight room, one will immediately point to the person with the largest muscles and lifting the most weight. That person is strong because they have trained their muscles to build and rebuild. To put it as simply as I can, muscles build when they are exposed to high levels of resistance that damages the muscle fibers, such as lifting weights. One must injure their muscles and then allow them to rebuild bigger and stronger. Muscle hypertrophy, for all you Kinesiology Majors.

My mom never lifted a weight her entire life. I think she may have attended a few jazzercise classes back in the day, but she was not a physically strong person. But, by no means was she weak. She was one of the strongest humans I have ever been around. Her mental strength is something I envy. I flipped through her diary a few years ago in which she jotted down notes while going through cancer treatment. Every day she would take her temperature and write it in her diary. Day after day, week after week, it was over 100, some days it was as high as 104.

She was sick all the time, and she never once let it get in the way of taking care of her family. I’m certain I was around on days when she was running a high fever, but she never said a word to me about it.

That is strength.

My mother took a beating mentally when fighting cancer. I guess you can say she became mentally muscular.

I echo Duke’s former Head Basketball Coach, Mike Krzyzewski talking to his team after practice one day.

“When you’re tired, what do you start thinking about? When you’re home you say ‘mom, I’m tired,’ and you expect some sympathy or a hug. My mother, God bless her, I never saw my mom sick. In other words, when I grew up, I woke up every day and my mom was there. I took it for granted. She’s never tired – or she never showed it. Be as tough as your mothers. They show up all the time, alright, and we need to show up all the time. Be as tough as your mothers.”

I encourage you to think about the strongest people in your life. What is it that makes you feel that way about them? Does physical strength have anything to do with it, or is it more than that?

Being strong comes in many forms.

A person gets strong physically through training. A person gets stronger mentally the same way. Through training the mind to never give up regardless of the circumstances. It may sound a bit foolish, but the act of telling yourself. “I can do this,” is like performing the bench press in weight training. Every time to tell yourself that mentally, you are doing a rep that will make you stronger.

That may be a stretch, but it’s true.

Although David was half the size of Goliath, he believed he could beat a much stronger and heavily favored challenger. It was David’s mental strength, his belief in himself and his God, which was on display when he knocked Goliath to the ground with a tiny rock.

Physically he was out matched, but mentally he was stronger.

I know a retired girls basketball coach who would spend the first 5 minutes of Monday practice bragging about one of his players to the rest of the team. He would point to the kid, ask her to stand up, then he would shower her with praise and encouragement. He would finish by saying, “This is why I believe in you. Tell me, why do you believe in yourself?”

He told me that some of the answers he got back from his players on that question would leave the entire team sobbing. They had a weight room where his team could get physically stronger, he was taking the time to make them mentally stronger.

Here is one thing I have learned in my sixty years of life. You really never know how strong you can be, until being strong is your only choice.

We all have more in our tank than we realize.

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].