| You can't leave any one of those elements out to make it at this level. You need everything, every single day to get through practice, the traveling, and the pressures.
I have been able to better handle all the challenges and excitements the past few years because my spiritual life has matured. It was kind of missing before, but now it helps me make it to the next level. Until nine years ago, I was hesitant to know about God and having a relationship with him because I saw hypocrisy in people who said they knew him.
One fall, I had the opportunity to travel and compete with a team committed to telling others how to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Through that experience I saw people whose lives were truly different, in a positive way, because of their Christian faith. I had viewed life as a series of traffic lights. Red lights were an imposition, holding me back from where I needed to go. I could never stop long enough to enjoy where I was. I always thought there was something else missing in my life, even when things seemed to be going great. The stops in life, I thought, were keeping me from discovering what that was.
When I placed my faith in Jesus Christ, all that changed. Now I know what was missing and no longer perceive life as I once did. Instead I have confidence that God is my rock. He is the stability of my life. I believe God know and understands the focus and situation of my life. He is really guiding me and taking care of me in the times that I am tired.
I pray for strength going into every practice and every game, every single day. Or the strength just to go out and talk to kids who look up to athletes. The strength God gives me is an area where my faith has become more evident. Now, if things aren't going my way, I tend to look at it from God's point of view instead of my point of view. That frees me up from worrying so much about my performance or myself. I think it's just human nature that your thoughts get negative or your thoughts tend to revolve more around yourself. My faith has really freed me up from all that.
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