I have been meaning to write this blog for a long time now. There are a lot of you out there who have been following me and my travels over the past few years and are probably wondering what I'm doing now. Well, I guess you could say that I have retired from basketball. Sounds weird for me to say that I'm retiring from anything, considering that I'm 28. Most people will see this and think that i'm crazy to give up playing a game for a living and having the chance to live and travel around Europe. And some days when I'm going to Wal-Mart in Enid, Oklahoma, I'm asking myself these same questions, haha.
Where do I start...........I guess I'll get right to it. Over the past 8 months or so, I've been faced with some serious questions. Who or what do I worship? And what motivates me to do what I do? As most of you know, I've had the opportunity to play professional basketball for the past 4 years. This past summer I was so extremely blessed, thanks to many of you, to go on a trip with Athletes in Action to Istanbul, Turkey. We actually played basketball and used the fact that we were athletes to share the gospel with people who otherwise would have never heard. This experience was absolutely vital and life changing for me. It helped me to realize what my priorities truly are and what direction I desire my life to go.
Here are a few things that I've wrestled with this summer. Being a Christian and a highly competitive athlete, there are some really thin lines and gray areas that you have to address. If you don't address these areas, its really easy to become a huge contradiction. I mean, what does it even mean to compete? To me, it means that I always want to win, I want to show that I'm better than you, I'm mentally and physically tougher than you, I'm stronger than you, smarter than you, and more skilled than you. Hmmmm.........how does this line up with Christian values? I've had to come to grips with the fact that basketball was an idol for me and I was a slave to it, instead of basketball being an opportunity for me to worship God. Here's what I mean by the fact that basketball was an idol for me.....I played because I truly love the game but I also played to prove myself and to justify my value. My daily decisions, choices, and actions were based around how it would affect my body and my ability to perform. When I was released from my team in Oberhausen last year, my honest immediate reaction was embarrassment, shame, disappointment. I honestly cried hard for like a whole day. I had a mtg with the team management and cried through most of it. Is that how someone reacts when they realize that their worth is in Christ alone or when they have their idol crushed and their world falls in around them? Hmmmm, interesting. It was a tough thing to realize that my identity and motivation for playing had become all jacked up. But it was also so freeing to realize that my identity is found in Christ alone and that my worth comes from what God declares is true about me. On our trip to Turkey we studied through some of these exact things and there was a list of things that God declares is true about you. We each looked through the list and picked a few things that were true about each of us. And during a game, I can remember a teammate walking up to me and asking “Katie, what's true about you?” and I answered “I have been chosen and set apart”. And this may sound cheesy or whatever, but just that small recognition and mental adjustment in the game helped me to put things in perspective and play free and really enjoy myself.
As a result of 4 years of making decisions that revolved solely around basketball and being away from any Christian community, I began to recognize myself less and less. It starts with one small compromise, and then 4 years later, I look no different to outsiders than any of my non-Christian teammates. I play the same way as everyone else, my attitude it basically the same, I go to the same places, and do the same things. Deep inside my heart might be different but when my actions don't follow.....then what is that worth. My convictions became smaller and less frequent and no actions followed them. BUT, by grace alone, God has called me away from a mediocre life and into a life where I desire to radically follow Him. I only have to ask myself this question, “If a non-believer sees me and gets to know me, will they see Jesus as someone that they MUST have in their lives or will they even see Jesus at all?” And If I'm honest about this, the answer isn't pretty.
All of this to say, I've decided to retire and to become an assistant coach at NOC for basically no money in Enid, Oklahoma. I do this because I feel like God has called me away from playing and away from that whole lifestyle. Whether I play for 4 years or 7 years, what does it really matter. I have nothing to prove to anyone. At the end of the day, do I want to be known as that girl who was really cool, good at basketball, and funny....Or do I want to be that girl who had an eternal impact on peoples lives? At NOC, I have the opportunity to work for a Godly man, who does things the right way and who has a great understanding of the potential impact you can make as a coach on a young college athlete. I have the opportunity to be in direct contact with 15 girls who are searching for who they are and who they want to become, and I think I have a great opportunity to have an impact on them. Naturally I really miss playing and the camaraderie that you get being on a team. And I don't think you can ever replace that game day feeling and adrenaline rush you get when you make a play and the crowd goes crazy, or those perfect moments in a game when everything works perfectly. And who knows, next year I might head back overseas. But if I do, it will be for totally different reasons than before. To the outside world, I might look crazy for choosing what I have, but honestly....I don't care. God reminds me frequently and reaffirms that I'm exactly where I need to be right now.
