Soon after our last spring game for the year, we had our annual 3v3 soccer tournament. That year, it had fallen on the same weekend as Campus Crusade’s Spring Retreat. I had been a part of Cru since I got to campus, but soccer always won when there was a conflict; it had too, I had no choice. My friends in Cru were encouraging me to go on the retreat with them, but I couldn’t because of soccer.
With all of these things piling up against my desire to play soccer, I realized the time had come. I had to quit the team. I knew I had to go on Retreat and I knew that the only way I could do that was by quitting the team. I had to lay down my dream of Division 1 greatness. There was no way I could make it a reality. The entire time I spent on the team, I had faced challenge after challenge. I fought and overcame some of them, but others were painful slaps in the face. I surrendered my last three years of college athletics eligibility to the Lord, trusting that this was not the end of soccer for me. That weekend at Spring Retreat was the most joyful experience I can remember! It was nothing that happened that weekend, it was the fact that I had been filled with joy unspeakable and I truly was free!
Within a month of quitting, I had found a local club team in the area that needed players. They were in the middle of their spring season, but signed me right away and I started playing immediately. I was one of the youngest players on the team, but managed to start as sweeper. I finally had a team that respected me as a player and cared about me as a person. It was nowhere near the same intensity as college soccer, but it was enough for me. I was still playing soccer, I had a starting position, and I had a team who cared about me. I have played for this club the past two years while I finished school, playing fall, winter, and spring seasons.
I didn’t become the All-American player that I dreamed to be, and with my last year of NCAA eligibility being spent overseas, this door is officially closed. And I’m ok with that. Through this fight and eventually surrender, I have learned how much of an idol soccer was in my life and how much I thought I deserved, in terms of soccer. Yes, I did bring a soccer ball with me on the Race, and yes, I have already played several times here in Guatemala. God is already teaching me how to use soccer as a tool for ministry as opposed to a means to fuel my pride and selfish ambitions.
L Squad, this is for you all! Last night we placed our pains and lies on the altar of God and burned them. They are NO MORE! What would it look like if each of us took what the devil wanted to use to bind us and we allowed God to show us how to use it for ministry? What if we learned to walk in it daily? Kingdom would come, power would be unleashed.
