Body Builder Jimmy Peña: From Vanity to God’s Truth

Suffering can be the gateway to a deeper relationship with God.  For Jimmy Pena, it was a defining moment, that changed everything.  It was the beginning of a climb up his second mountain. 

A lifelong Christian....his relationship with Jesus and his life purpose made a 180 degree pivot after a devastating diagnosis and health crisis.  At first it resulted in his questioning everything, re-working his life and heading down a new path.  But it wasn't easy. 

Listen to the episode right here, right now:

Watch this episode right here, right now:

I truly loved this conversation with a man who went from being a nationally known picture of health (literally) to  incapacitated, immobile, and struggling to survive.

Jimmy Pena, working with the legendary Joe Weider, was one of the most published authorities on fitness, health and body building, including a best selling book, "Prayfit".  He coached some of Hollywood's most elite actors in preparation for movie roles..including Tyler Perry, Mario Lopez and LL Cool J.   That was his first mountain. His first chapter.  You'll hear about that on this episode, but more importantly you'll hear about his transformation and how a Batman Movie helped to flip the script and launch a trajectory of life long service in his powerful 2nd (current) chapter. 

Here is what Prayfit today, is all about:

I've never met anyone more humble and more committed to living a life of service and committed to loving God.  His amazing life story of mountain tops and valleys is truly inspiriting.

Enjoy getting to know Jimmy in this podcast...and dig deeper into the episode by checking out:

His "Prayfit" website: https://www.prayfit.org/

His latest Book: Finding Re2pite: When Faith & Fitness Meet Grace in Suffering

And the amazing work of Joni Erickson Tada: https://joniandfriends.org/

JIMMY PEÑA AT A GLANCE

Fitness Expert • Best-Selling Author • PrayFit Founder • Christian Advocate for People with Disabilities

Topics

Christian faith • Fitness • PrayFit • Success • Suffering • Chronic illness • Grace • Humility • Disability ministry • Service • Purpose • Joni Eareckson Tada

His Faith Journey

Christian upbringing → Committing his life to Christ in eighth grade → Fitness success → Growing emptiness → Embracing smallness → Serious illness and suffering → Deeper dependence on God → Serving people with disabilities → Discovering his second mountain

This Episode Explores

• Jimmy Peña's rise to the top of the fitness industry

• Working with Joe Weider and major Hollywood personalities

• Why success eventually left Jimmy Peña feeling empty

• The creation and success of PrayFit

• How serious illness and multiple surgeries changed his life

• Jimmy Peña's powerful encounter with suffering and grace

• His transformation from fitness success to disability ministry

• The influence of Joni Eareckson Tada and Joni and Friends

• Why Jimmy Peña describes service as his "second mountain"

• What suffering taught him about God, weakness and purpose

Questions Answered

• Who is Jimmy Peña?

• How did Jimmy Peña become a fitness expert?

• What is PrayFit?

• How did Jimmy Peña come to faith in Jesus?

• Why did Jimmy Peña begin questioning his fitness career?

• What happened to Jimmy Peña's health?

• How did suffering change Jimmy Peña's faith?

• What is Jimmy Peña's "second mountain"?

• How did Joni Eareckson Tada influence Jimmy Peña?

• What does Jimmy Peña believe suffering can teach us?

• How is Jimmy Peña serving people with disabilities?

• What is Finding Re2pite about?

Podcast Transcript: Jimmy Peña on Fitness, Faith, Suffering & Finding His Second Mountain

Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen

Hi there, it's Ric Hansen with Amazing Greats, and today we talk with Jimmy Peña, an icon in the fitness world for years. He's been the face of Muscle & Fitness magazine for decades, has written thousands of articles on fitness, and has been involved with the writing of nine books, two of them New York Times bestsellers.

He's always been a man of God. But this is the story of how his relationship with his Creator took a dramatic change.

Same amazing guy, but two lives.

And we uncover them both on this episode of Amazing Greats.

Jimmy, it is so great to see you. So great to have you on the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Jimmy Peña: Thank you so much for asking.

Jimmy Peña's First Mountain: Fitness, Writing and Success

Ric Hansen: Well, let's first of all, for those in our audience who are not familiar with Jimmy Peña, I kind of, as a metaphor, was trying to position your life in two chapters. Like there's this chapter one and then there's chapter two. And then as I started thinking about it, it's more like two different volumes.

I mean, is there two different books here? Is it Jimmy Peña 1.0 and Jimmy Peña 2.0?

So that's where we're going to start, with where you built your platform in terms of a national presence and a fan base, if you will, back in the early days. So just give us the early résumé of what Jimmy Peña was all about in those early days.

Jimmy Peña: Yeah. I like the idea of second mountains. In fact, the number two is an interesting number that I've used throughout the ministry and the career. But yeah, so there's been two halves, if you will, and gloriously, in the second half, which is great.

But yeah, I started out in mainstream fitness, actually. I'm from Texas. My wife and I are both from Texas. I went to Baylor for undergrad. I did my master's in the University of Texas system and have a master's degree in clinical exercise physiology.

And so I was all into strength and conditioning. I was very serious about it and ended up writing a thesis on the effects of endurance training on muscle size and strength in competitive weightlifters. So I was in that mode.

In fact, one of my first leadership appointments was as the strength and conditioning director at a place called the Tom Landry Sports Science Center in Dallas. I had a wonderful team and a great staff, and just hard-charging hospitality and leadership while helping people stay healthy and kind of cutting my teeth in those realms.

And then, all the while, I started writing fitness magazines and fitness articles, freelancing for a magazine in Los Angeles called Muscle & Fitness.

I'm old enough to remember that we used to actually go to the newsstands and find magazines and get excited to see the latest magazine. It was so slow when you think about it. It took six weeks for a magazine to come out.

Ric Hansen: Yeah.

Jimmy Peña: But I was freelancing on the weekends, writing these articles. And incidentally, I kind of hooked up with them in Seattle.

Ric Hansen: I'm from Seattle, and we're recording here from Seattle. You hooked up with Muscle & Fitness in Seattle at one point, right?

Jimmy Peña: That's right. I was actually presenting that thesis at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference, and so Seattle was very near and dear to my heart.

I was presenting that, and then a team from Muscle & Fitness came up and said, "Hey, take us through your thesis." And I did. And they said, "Would you like to be a freelance writer for us?"

So that's how the freelance gig started.

I started writing for Flex magazines and Muscle & Fitness and Muscle & Fitness Hers and all sorts of different opportunities. And then a few years later, they invited me to Los Angeles to be the worldwide fitness editor for that label.

One of my big breaks, so to speak, was serving under the leadership of Joe Weider.

Joe Weider—some listeners may not know, some may recognize that name—was one of the founders of bodybuilding and fitness. They called him the "Master Blaster," and he found Arnold and all the great old bodybuilders of the day.

Joe Weider invited me to be a part of his staff. So that actually brought us west, ultimately, to be a freelance writer.

Ric Hansen: You maybe ended up being the most published Muscle & Fitness writer in the country at that point in time, correct?

And you attracted some of the people from Hollywood who wanted your assistance in preparing themselves for movies, including Mario Lopez and LL Cool J, and who else?

Tyler Perry.

Wow. You were at the top of the top at that point.

Jimmy Peña: It was interesting. I couldn't believe that I would be tapped on the shoulder to write these books or get people ready for magazine covers or movies. It just happened so fast.

So I became that guy.

I was just writing and writing and writing and serving where I could, and gig to gig to gig—infomercials and all over the fitness realm.

We were just hard-charging. And then I did that for a few years until 2009, actually. That was the last in-house opportunity.

It was right after the 2008 housing crisis, and businesses all over California and all over the country, I suppose, were making modifications. They ended up moving to New York, and a lot of us older editors were laid off and given packages.

Which happened to be a huge blessing.

I didn't know if I knew it at the time, but it became a huge, huge blessing.

My wife and I started what we called PrayFit, a blog. In fact, I was laid off on a Friday, and then on that Monday, we started writing what we called fitness devotions back then.

This was before the "faith and fitness" hashtag was around.

We started writing faith and fitness, which is kind of weird to say, but we started writing fitness articles that had some meaning and humor and depth to them.

So we just kind of fashioned those things together and pretty much didn't look back.

Faith Was Always Part of the Story

Ric Hansen: But faith wasn't new to you at this point. Faith started in eighth grade, as I understand it, right?

So in eighth grade, walk us through how you found Jesus and how that all started, too.

Jimmy Peña: I became a believer back in Texas, at a little Baptist church there in Texas. So I committed my life to Christ at an early age.

Ric Hansen: Did that happen like in an altar call, or was it through a group of friends? How did that work?

Jimmy Peña: It was an altar-call situation.

I mean, I grew up in church, didn't really understand, but then one day the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and I said, "You know what? I don't know, and I want to commit my life to Jesus."

And I became a Christian.

I think I have learned in the past 40 years what that meant as you grow in grace.

But yes, I do look to the eighth grade as a time where it clicked with me that, you know what, I want to be a Christian. I want to follow Christ.

My relationship with the Lord was very important to me in high school. I got involved with FCA, I was committed at church, and went to college committed to the Lord.

So it's always been important.

When Success Started to Feel Empty

Ric Hansen: So did you see the Lord's presence in this kind of spiral up the first mountain of success? Did you see along the way God's presence and God's guidance?

Jimmy Peña: Oh, of course I did.

Whether it be with the successes, but also failures and pitfalls on the way up that, quote-unquote, first mountain of success.

I did feel this emptiness as I was in that whole field of fitness. I did feel a conviction, a hollowness in what I was doing and what I was writing about.

It got old, and it got kind of—I don't know—it got a little icky in my mind.

In fact, I reached out to a pastor, Louie Giglio, who I met at Baylor when he was leading a Bible study at Baylor.

I sent him an email and said, "You know, Louie, I really want to make an impact for the Lord in my area of expertise."

And he, as Louis often is, was so sharp in very few words. He said, "You know, Jimmy, embrace your smallness."

In an industry where size is king, really embracing your smallness is where you're going to make the most impact.

At the time, he might as well have been speaking another language that I didn't understand because I was so about size and strength and thinking that, hey, to honor God, you've got to be fit, you've got to be strong.

And that's a "my fitness is my witness" type of cliché.

Even to say that, it puts a weird taste in my mouth.

No one really knows me, so they don't know why that's such a bad taste in my mouth.

But yes, at the time it was odd. But then I grew to love that statement.

In fact, I celebrate smallness and weakness now.

So yeah, I did have a relationship with the Lord as I was climbing that ladder and having that success. Some of the books that I did with famous people did very well.

It just kept producing a source of income and a source of all sorts of things.

The Joe Weider Moment

Ric Hansen: There was an "aha" moment that you spoke about or that I read about where Joe Weider, who at that point was still in the building and a part of what you were doing there, had changed over the years, right?

Jimmy Peña: Correct.

It wasn't too far into the time there, maybe halfway through, I would imagine.

I see Joe Weider walking from his office down the hall.

It's interesting. I was editing articles and we were so busy, and then I look across the hall and I see Joe. He's got his aide, the nurse, with him, and he's got a walker, and he's struggling down the hallway.

And he literally passes right in front of this statue of himself, this bronze statue of himself.

It's really this bust, and his arms are folded and his chin is up.

And here it is.

I think I've said before that I saw two bookends of the same man in the same shot.

It jolted me to be like, "What am I doing?"

Life is not about the body.

And I felt like a counterfeit bill in that room, in my editing room.

Seeing Joe in that moment had a huge impact on me.

It wasn't long after that that I reached out to Louie and said, "Man, I've got to do something that's deeper."

And that's how that started.

PrayFit and the First Mountain

Ric Hansen: So that is so cool that you were kind of coming to grips with the fact that here you are at the top of your game and coming to grips with the fact that you were not fully fulfilled at that point.

But I guess what really changed things was where the second mountain comes in.

In that moment, everything was riding good, but then there was kind of this switch.

What happened at that point?

Jimmy Peña: We had launched PrayFit, and we put a—I packaged about a year's worth of devotions into a book and found a small publisher and published that book.

And that book did really well because some friends went on national TV shows during their movie releases and mentioned us on The Tonight Show and on CNN and you name it.

So PrayFit was blowing up.

That book went number one.

And then I got a call from Lionsgate Entertainment, and they wanted to do a DVD deal back in the day when there were what's called DVDs.

They put our DVDs in Walmart.

I actually had a DVD next to Jane Fonda. It was like Jane Fonda, The Biggest Loser, and then PrayFit right there.

It was surreal.

Now that I look back on it, it just feels so ancient to think about.

Ric Hansen: But the premise of that book was you can praise God by honoring His temple and make health and fitness the premise by which you are glorifying God, correct?

Jimmy Peña: That's right.

And so if I look back, I would say life is not about the body, but our health is a means of praise. And I still, to a certain degree, believe that.

I mean, there are a lot of things that I've said that I would never say. There's a lot of things that I've done that I would never do. There's a lot of things that I've written that I would never write today.

In fact, that one book, one of those books, I do cringe sometimes when I think back or I see something or I reference something in an old book of mine.

I do cringe a little bit at what I would say about faith and fitness and taking care of our health to glorify God.

And if I'm being completely, brutally transparent in this moment, I wonder how much I was trying to glorify the Lord.

I get the idea that I'm taking care of my health to glorify the Lord, but really I was probably more trying to glorify me and make money and do good for my wife.

Yes, I see it as a means of praise, but I wonder how many times that was really true and pure.

I'm not sure.

I know the Lord knows my heart, and it's one of those things where I'm not real sure.

It wasn't until later on that I think I praised the Lord more in times of suffering than I did in times of good health.

But yes, to answer your question, the first early days of PrayFit were very much filled and laced with goodness and trying to take care of ourselves and educate people to take care of their bodies and eat right.

So absolutely.

Ric Hansen: And you've got to say that God doesn't make mistakes.

He was, at that point in the Jimmy Peña story, creating this platform.

So later on—and we're going to get into the second mountain here in just a minute—you needed that platform to make a voice, to be heard.

That was, I think, Jimmy Peña 1.0. That was where God was taking you.

Jimmy Peña: Yeah, I do think that the Lord was in it, and I do believe that He used me in certain ways, and I'm so grateful.

Even to this day, I do think that we can, as a society, sometimes diminish the importance of bodily stewardship.

So in that time, I was really trying to help believers, help the church, help whoever would listen that, hey, listen, we can take care of ourselves in a good, wholesome way so that we can better serve the Lord, honor Him, and take care of our families.

I tried.

It's very difficult.

There's this balance of honoring God with your body. I can't promote vanity and sell modesty.

So there's this fine line that we always tried to walk.

How do I sell the product to take care without showing the results?

We always tried to walk that line—not be showy at the same time as educating.

It was a constant battle.

And I think the Lord was in there with us. He's directing us in that regard.

Ric Hansen: Yeah. The fine line is, do you treat this fitness thing as your idol, as your god, as opposed to glorifying God?

Jimmy Peña: Yeah.

Just like money.

You don't have to be healthy in order to honor God with your body any more than you have to be rich to honor Him with your money.

But it's a heart issue.

And I hope and pray that those early days of PrayFit were seen that way and received that way.

I can only hope that would be the case.

The Second Mountain: Suffering Changes Everything

Ric Hansen: Yeah.

But let's leave the first mountain, because the second mountain is where you're at now.

You're still climbing the second mountain, and that came about in a rather tragic way.

Tell us about that. Walk us through the suffering.

Jimmy Peña: After the second book, actually, after the first book into the DVD deal, I was enduring some really tough physical issues.

A couple of the issues I was having—you know, it's one of those things you don't talk about at parties—but I was suffering from a couple things.

I have a debilitating spinal issue, and so I was losing spinal discs in the neck. I was losing spinal discs in my lower back. Just a genetic disc disease.

But I was also having colon trouble.

So, long story short, I went through some really, really tough surgeries, multiple surgeries. It pretty much took me out of the fitness game and took me off the road.

I couldn't travel with clients to write their books. I definitely couldn't train in any way.

So it really hit super, super hard physically.

My world was turned upside down.

A lot of the things that I would teach individuals, even just in mindset, I was incapable of grabbing hold of.

And I started to question a lot of things that I used to teach and a lot of things I used to say.

But I realized really quickly that you don't always get what you work for.

My neck was replaced with artificial discs. Two discs were removed from the lower back, and I had this colon issue.

I had a very risky surgery. If I didn't have the surgery, who knows?

But I chose the surgery, and there was a chance—a very high chance—that I would always have a colostomy bag and, you know, a life-altering situation for me.

Ric Hansen: Jimmy Peña is our special guest on Amazing Greats, author and humanitarian who has dedicated his life to serving people with special needs.

Was this all happening in an instant? I mean, with the neck thing and all of that? Or was it kind of slowly coming on and you recognized it over time?

Jimmy Peña: So tough stuff really started happening in 2010.

From 2010 through 2013 were the surgeries and being homebound. I just couldn't move, and it was really tough.

Really learning and fighting through and getting to know myself—really getting to know who I was and who I wasn't.

It was a 16-week recovery from the colon surgery. I met with the doctor, and he said that things were coming back and I was going to be able to function somewhat normally.

I was able to get out of the house after a few months, and my wife said, "What do you want to do?"

I said, "I want to go see a movie. I want to go see Batman: The Dark Knight Rises."

It's so funny I mention that, but it had such an impact on my life.

In that movie, Bruce Wayne breaks his back and he's in prison, and he has to get out of this hole in the ground.

The first thing he does when he gets out of this prison is he throws a rope to get other people who are captive out.

I'm very mental, emotional and sentimental, and I thought, "That's exactly what I'm going to do."

If I heal up and I get out of this, I'm going to help others through their tough pain, through their suffering.

So the second mountain kind of began when the Lord allowed that healing after that last colon surgery.

I said, "You know what? Times have changed. PrayFit's going in a different direction."

And it's so funny, too, because at the same time, over those years, I started to serve in our local special-needs disabilities department on the weekends with my wife.

So I really was falling in love with the disability community and kids with special needs, and then at the same time going through some really tough stuff of my own.

This whole thing just kind of hit all at once, and I said, "This is the direction that I'm going to take PrayFit and any of the publishing that I do."

We started dedicating PrayFit to the kids and parents impacted by special needs.

And so the second mountain kind of began right after that moment.

Finding a New Purpose Through Service

In fact, it wasn't too long after that that I was talking to a gentleman at a disability center here in Los Angeles called Joni and Friends.

I know you're familiar with Joni Eareckson Tada.

This gentleman had asked me about my history and résumé. He was looking at it, and I had kind of read off a few of the things that we had done.

He had actually seen one of my books on his bookshelf.

And he says, "You know, Jimmy, you've got all of these things that you've done."

Well, he asked me, "What would life look like if things turned out well for you?"

And I was like, "Uh, what?"

I was trying not to take it as, "Oh, wow."

But it was such a genius move on his part.

He said, "You've done all of these really huge things and you've had the success, but what would life look like for you in the second half if things actually produced?"

And I'm like, "Oh my goodness. That's so good."

And what he was getting to—and he actually alluded to this book about the second half, I think that's what it was called—was this whole idea of the next chapter, the second mountain.

And he said, "Service."

He was teaching me so well.

Service is really the byproduct of that grace and that gift of whatever we can do.

And I'm like, "Yes. This is so right."

And if I had to answer now, looking back, things will turn out right if I'm serving people with whatever level of health I have, good or bad.

The byproduct of that is service and humility and almost an invisibility to it.

The second half, or the second mountain, really propelled us into getting involved with Joni and Friends.

I was able to help their ministry on the West Coast.

In fact, I traveled to a few international spots, like Brazil, to distribute wheelchairs for people that don't have the gift of mobility and don't have the gospel.

I really saw through Joni and Friends real service, real sacrifice.

And with Joni herself—I mean, truly, Joni Eareckson Tada, for those that don't know her—she's the most remarkable woman you'll ever meet or read about.

She's been quadriplegic for over five decades, and she has dedicated her life to serving the Lord through wheelchair distribution and Bibles and respite care all around the world.

She can't move anything below her neck.

The Example of Joni Eareckson Tada

Ric Hansen: Oh my God.

Jimmy Peña: And it's so funny, too, because I came to Los Angeles to serve Joe Weider, and he was the best at showing muscle.

And yet Joni Eareckson Tada can't move at all, and she has done more to honor God with her body than I ever could dream about doing in the most grueling of workouts or the most dedicated diets and the faith-and-fitness syndrome.

Watching someone like her do what she does is completely life-changing.

Ric Hansen: She's the gospel in motion.

Someone quoted—and I can't remember who it was. I think it was in your book. In your most recent book, she said that she was the closest thing to Jesus on earth that he's ever met, right?

Jimmy Peña: Yes.

He said, "I don't want to elevate Joni or lower Christ, but she is as close to Jesus as you'll get for me."

And you know what? He is spot on.

I don't think anyone who knows her or knows her story would actually refute or disagree with that.

When Suffering Becomes a Place to Meet God

Ric Hansen: And we kind of blazed by your own personal suffering, and I don't want to get into the depths of it too much, but I don't want to undertell that story either.

Your personal suffering was long-term, over a period of time. You were at a point where you didn't know that it was ever going to come around.

So it was, in some ways, a bit hopeless, a bit depressing.

Did you ever ask or wonder what God had in store for you through all of that?

Jimmy Peña: Absolutely, I did.

In fact, there were some really dark moments.

I think I may have mentioned it in the book Finding Re2pite.

I was lying in a bathtub of my own making, full of blood and waste and urine, and you name it.

Here I was, this fitness guy, thinking he's something years ago, and I had success, I had money, I had you name it.

And here I am in a bathtub.

I'm sweating and I'm turning the music up so nothing can be heard outside.

You talk about low—like really low.

I knew that if I'm going to get out of this stage of my life, it would absolutely only be by the grace of God if I was able to make it.

It was really scary and tough.

I really thought life as I knew it was over.

But I didn't know if life was over.

It was haunting.

And I think that's why I still beat the drum in my own heart more than ever, and publicly I hope that anything—it's all a gift.

I never would have felt that closeness to the Lord had I not gotten sick and had I not gone through such tough times.

I know it.

And I'm not saying that we're not close to the Lord when we're super healthy and super fit. I'm not saying that at all.

I believe that we can be.

But I do know for certain that nothing will drive you to the Lord like suffering.

"Suffering Breaks Us, Shapes Us and Sends Us"

Ric Hansen: Well, that was one of the things out of the book.

So I'm going to name the book here again because my producer, my editor, always says, "Well, you talk about the book and then you never state the name of the book."

So it's Finding Re2pite, and the tagline is When Faith and Fitness Meet Grace in Suffering.

It's a short book, only 100 pages, and I absolutely recommend everybody pick that up, but especially anybody that's in that phase of their life where they're suffering.

One of the things that I thought of as I'm reading this book and I'm hearing your story, I'm hearing you tell Joni's story.

There's somebody in the book named Kevin and his story.

And I'm saying to myself, "God, I guess until I'm suffering, I'm not going to be as close to the Lord as these folks are."

But what you're saying right there is not so much that it's one way or the other.

God works. God works in the way He chooses.

Jimmy Peña: I do hope that maybe especially the younger generation coming up in the fitness world, or even the seemingly stronger middle-aged men and women out there, get involved with those who are going through the tough stuff of life.

You know, now, while you're fit and healthy and still able, get involved. Get plugged in.

In fact, part of the book I say that suffering breaks us, suffering shapes us, and ultimately suffering sends us.

And that's very true.

It doesn't always work out that way.

Suffering, in many ways, brought out in me some character flaws. It really highlighted some of my character flaws—my weak mind, my lack of faith.

It exposes so much.

And it kind of gets those things out in the open to where you can deal with them with the Lord and others that you love.

So you grow. You grow from those times of suffering.

But you don't have to go through suffering personally to engage in it that way.

That's why I say get involved with the disability community. Get involved with those who are suffering and going through tough stuff, and your life will change for the better.

The Lord may open up your eyes to some other ways of living.

Because I think we can get so focused on, "Hey, I'm going to do these things. I'm going to stay healthy. I'm going to take care of myself."

But I think if we can extend outward into the hurting communities, even while we're healthy and fit, we can make such a huge difference in others and as much in yourself as well.

What's Next for Jimmy Peña?

Ric Hansen: So somewhere you said this is going to be your last book.

And I said, "I don't think so. I don't think so."

Was that the idea that this would be your last book? Or do you remember even saying that?

Jimmy Peña: Maybe it may be.

But you never know.

I do get inspired. I'm always jotting things down and ideas down, so you never know.

Ric Hansen: You never know. It could be called Jordan's House.

Jimmy Peña: That's right. That's right. I hope so.

Closing

Ric Hansen: Wow.

So thank you so much, Jimmy. You have been just an inspiration, and you are such a bundle of energy and enthusiasm.

I just can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this conversation.

Jimmy Peña: I've had so much fun. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been awesome. I really appreciate you.

Ric Hansen: How cool is that, Jimmy Peña?

This is a guy who has so much amazing wisdom to offer, and we will continue to follow his journey as he makes waves for Jesus.

We haven't heard the last of this guy yet.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this awesome story. Hopefully, you will find more about him and his ministry through his book or his website, and continue to support him in all of the things he's doing for people with special needs and their families.

Until next time, God bless.