Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 7, 2023 | Expresso - Kyann Eslick

Transcript

March 7, 2023 | Expresso - Kyann Eslick · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so to start, I actually want to read scripture.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this scripture has been really meaningful to me.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I came across it sometime after I'd been going through, I guess, a hard time in my life after I graduated college, and it really struck me.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know how you read scripture and something just really sticks with you and it has meaning to it that it may never have had in the past.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's from 2 Corinthians chapter 7.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, yeah.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um verses 9 through 11.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, but he says, Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: For you became sorrowful as God intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: See what this godly sorrow has produced in you, what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indign what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then he he continues to go on.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll circle around and tell you why that scripture means so much to me, but I kind of want to just, you know, start at the beginning of my story.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I was saved as a young girl from the get-go.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'd always gone to church.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: My parents raised me to go to church.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was in church every Sunday.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I loved the Lord and I accepted him as a young girl.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was in elementary school, and I got baptized shortly after that.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And growing up, you know, I knew what it meant to serve the Lord, but I never had that intimate connection that I feel that I do today, that earnest desire to follow God and to spend time in his word.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So in high school, I played volleyball my entire life growing up until my second year of college is when I stopped playing.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But volleyball was a huge part of my life, and it eventually became my identity, more so than me being a believer.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody knew me to be the volleyball player, and I wanted to be an incredible volleyball player.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: My dad had me in the gym constantly.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sunday afternoons, Sunday evenings after church, I was in the gym.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime I complained, he told me, but don't you want to be good?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I did want to be good.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had dreams of being an Olympic volleyball player one day.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I played club ball for six years.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I played volleyball from when I was little teeny tiny all the way till I was done.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to be that girl when people walked in the gym.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: They were there to see me.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be the team leader, I wanted to be the best player on the court, and I loved the game so much.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: But it so much to the point that it became my identity.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my junior year of high school uh was the last year that I played traveling ball.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I have been traveling to Salina, which I'm from Southwest Kansas, um, pretty close to Colorado and Oklahoma, down there in the very corner, little town called Ulysses.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Has anybody ever heard of Ulysses?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, heck yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I grew up.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I've been traveling to Celina to play club ball, and I was actually here in Topeka playing, and I went up to hit and I landed on my left leg and it snapped out from underneath me.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I just remember just this sick feeling.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like my I felt like if someone had taken my knee and snapped it like a chicken leg, just and it was clean.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I felt it in my whole body.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I was sitting there on the floor.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had never heard of an ACL before then.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know you could tear something in your knee.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never had a significant injury like that.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'd had some other, some other aches and pains, you know, I twisted my ankle, you know, other stuff like that.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But so I couldn't walk for a couple of days after that.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we were visiting my family here in town, and my cousin was gonna get me some crutches, but I didn't want them.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm fine, you know.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, we got back home, and the physical therapist there, the one physical therapist we had in town, he checked my knee and he said, Yeah, you tore your ACL.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, So what does that mean?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I immediately I just started crying because he told me you're gonna be out for eight months, and my senior year was starting in eight months because this was in January, and I would have been starting that that following August, my senior year available.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had plans to go to college, whatnot.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I tore my ACL, I went through, I had my recovery, my surgery.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was horrible.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And now looking back, I realize how horrible it was because I've had nine knee surgeries today.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a lot of knee surgeries, and so I didn't know, I had no comparison, I had no idea what different doctors would do, how you know my first one was a cadaver, that they could use your own ligaments, all that kind of stuff.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really bad process.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I did get recruited to Hutchinson Community College, and so I accepted that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was during my senior year.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I did make it back and I did play my senior year of volleyball.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I did have a lot of pain in my knee just from it not being gray.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't straighten it the way that I wanted to.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I get to college, my freshman year of college at Hutch, second day of preseason.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we were doing three a days at this point.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: We've been doing three practices per day, and it was a lot of work.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm on the court and we're doing a drill.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the right and I went to the left, and my knee went crack, crack.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, because it's a fast-paced drill, my coach is saying, Let's go, let's go.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So my knees just popped sideways, both directions, and I run out to try to jump to spike the ball, and I land, and my knee blows out again.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So then I just fell and I walked off the court because I already knew in my mind, I knew I had torn my knee again.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, it feels so bad.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: It felt horrible.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was walking, it was just shifting, it was giving away.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and I found the athletic trainer and he tested me, did some stuff, and he's like, Yeah, you definitely tore something.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just bawling, crying my eyes out.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I walked back to the gym a little bit after that, and my coach looks at me and I just break down crying because it's like, oh, here we go again.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just spent eight months recovery, you know, the year before that.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't get to play my freshman year.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I did come back for um spring bowl, which was really hard because all my teammates were at this next level, and I've been sitting out for eight months.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like college is fast-paced, even when you're good and you've had your entire life to prepare, you're never prepared enough.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I did tear my ACL that second time, plus my MCL and my LCL.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So essentially my PCO, which is what prevents your knee from going backward, was the only thing that had it torn.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so let me let me look at my notes because I'm gonna get a little bit lost.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but I was going through all that and I was so consumed by it.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: My identity was all volatile.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was all I was thinking about.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, trying to get a 4.0 at school because I was I was so driven by being perfect.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be perfect even in my classes.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I knew if I was gonna get a B, why was I even there?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: That was my mentality, it was not, oh, you can have a B, it's fine.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I strive for perfection.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that 4.0.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I even got to the point where my coach would say things to me, like, are you gonna get me a 4.0 this semester?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because we had ratings.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our the team had ratings based on our GPA, and it was how we stacked against the other sports.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, no, I'm gonna get myself a 4.0.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna get you a 4.0.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It just rubbed me the wrong way, but it shouldn't have even been about that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So then my sophomore year, um, I played, I started, I was playing around all the way around on the court, and a few weeks before our final game of the season and warm-up, I jumped and I landed in my knee.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I tore it again.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so frustrating.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I started crying again.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember my coach saying, 'Hey, did you hurt your your ankle?' And I said, No, it's my knee coach.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I almost couldn't, I was bent over crying my eyes out.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so obviously, I didn't play that game.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was off to the side, and the trainers were working with me.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the students, it's kind of funny looking back at it now, but one of the students, he was on the oh, I guess I don't know what you're going.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: They they record all the games.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So he had was trying to record me, and I'm sitting, I'm on the table just crying my eyes out as he's recording me.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I bury my head in my shirt, and I was just so angry.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, why is he recording me?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just being so hurt.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was so angry.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was like every plan that I ever made for myself for those couple of years of my life were just thrown out the window.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just frustrating.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I always wonder, you know, like why my knee?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: I have a bad knee.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the way I was landing?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how much I trained myself, I was going to continue to land on that left leg.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have a lot of really pretty scars.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so then the season ended.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I had surgeries, but every time I had a surgery to repair my ACL again, I had to have a bone reconstruction prior to that because every time the ACL would tear, it would pull out the bone.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you had to attach it to the bone.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to fix the bone before I could go in and fix the ligament.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it always made the process longer than it had to be.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I spent most of my first two years of college on crutches.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I remember getting handicapped stickers, just crutching to all my classes.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was just so frustrating because I just wanted to do the things the way that I wanted to do them.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there was always a roadblock in my path.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now I did continue to get 4.0.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would have surgery on Friday, I'd be back in class on Monday in pain, but I always told myself I'm gonna go to class and I'm gonna have this 4.0 because I have to be perfect.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have to strive for that perfection.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So then after season, and I was recovering come spring when I would have graduated, my coach was setting aside the sophomores, pulling us aside, saying, Hey, you want to continue to play?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I don't really know.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to decide.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really hard decision because I had gotten an offer from Adam State University in Colorado, and this coach had tried to recruit me out of high school, but I didn't want to go that far away.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So then I was contemplating it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So she called me before my last game, the last time I had torn my ACL, and she said, I'm gonna offer you again.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Great, let's talk.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have a game tonight, we'll talk later.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we hung up.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was feeling pretty excited about that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So then that was another plan that I had in mind.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was, oh, I'm gonna do this, and it obviously didn't work out.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I called her back and I said, Coach, I tore my ACL again.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know what to do.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It won't stop tearing.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So she said, We'll get you out there, we'll we'll rehab you, we'll get you on the court.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I don't think you understand.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how many times I plan for something to go this way, it goes the complete opposite.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like God has a different plan for my life.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I was preparing to talk tonight, I was thinking, so many people think that my maybe people are guessing my testimony has something to do with my cochlear implant, because I'm deaf and I have a cochlear implant.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people know that about me.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not really, that's not been the most meaningful part of my life.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, having a cochlear implant, I'm so blessed and so glad that I can hear because of it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I just think about what I went through as I was experiencing all those injuries, all those surgeries, just all the pain I felt.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And just remembering that, you know, when we don't have strength, God provides that for us.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then also looking back, I was always interested in guys.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're in college, girls always talking about all the boys, and you're surrounded by all the athletes.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I was always it just seems like my life was all volleyball, getting perfect grades, and talking to the cutest guy that I could find.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so silly, but I look back at that and I'm like, those guys did they were not believers, they did not have good morals, the temptations were there.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was always a struggle, just I guess, just to have my eyes where they should have been.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had all these awesome things ahead of me, and I was just so excited about everything.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I transferred to Washburn, so I did two years here after going to Hutch, and I was dating a guy, and he ended up breaking up with me over a text message right after we graduated.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was I was really irritated because to break up with someone over text that you've been dating for a while is just it's mean, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So then I remember just crying, and my my mom telling me it wasn't gonna hurt one day the way that it did in that moment.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, was she right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I look back at that and I think that guy was not right for me.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, he was very lukewarm in his faith, and he didn't hold me accountable to my relationship with God, and I wasn't pursuing God while I was dating him the way that I'm pursuing God now.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So then I also had another struggle.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I decided to stop playing after my sophomore year, I transferred here and I started I worked three jobs for almost two years, and I lost a lot of weight.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I lost 20 pounds, so I had more muscle when I was playing volleyball, and I lost 20 pounds, and it I wasn't starving myself by any means.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was eating, but I was just working, going from one job to classes, and I would just eat enough, but you just lose weight when you're not lifting, you don't you lose that muscle.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I honestly didn't have to work.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: My parents never made me work.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was a choice that I made for myself because I didn't know how to deal with not having volleyball in my life anymore.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, oh, I have to find something else to fill my time because what's my meaning?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's my purpose?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm no longer gonna be so cool because I'm on that court spiking the ball at people and you know, earning those points.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: My life was just so different and I hated it because I wanted my identity to be volleyball.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I loved the game so much, and I had a lot to work through because of that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It took me a while.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it was after I graduated college before I really realized, okay, my I'm I'm really feeling guilty for decisions that I've made, for where my focus has been and the struggles that I've had.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until that time, which now would be three, four years ago, that I really felt like I needed to draw close to God.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the scripture that I mentioned before, when it says godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying that I tore my knee because God was punishing me.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not someone that, like, we can have an injury, it doesn't mean because that's God's punishing us.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of times we go through something and it makes us evaluate the decisions that we've been making and our choices outside of that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the meaning for that really stood out to me.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So let me let me find what I wrote here.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So worldly sorrow is self-centered sorrow.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're going through something and you feel worldly sorrow, let's say you've done something wrong and you feel bad, you've been caught.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, darn it, I shouldn't have done that.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I feel a little bit guilty because I got caught, or the consequences of this decision are negative.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: But godly sorrow manifests itself by bringing repentance and realizing how dishonorable your actions or your thoughts are toward God, whatever that sin is that you've been living in.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, you could take that any way you want.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: But throughout some of the bad decisions that I made in college and volleyball, boys, trying to be perfect, all the different decisions that I had made, I never felt the need to like just repent and give my life to God and ask him to just lead me and to help me.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it wasn't until, you know, after I graduated college that I really felt guilt for the decisions that I had been making.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I really wanted to repent and change my life.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like that's when my relationship with God really began.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because even though I've been a believer since I was really young, I hadn't, I didn't love the Lord the way that I do now, you know.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a quote that I found that I really like, and it says, This is to be carefully observed, for unless the sinner be dissatisfied with himself, detest his manner of life, and be thoroughly grieved from apprehension of sin, he will never betake himself to the Lord.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um after I graduated, so I got a communications degree at Washburn, and it felt like the most meaningless, meaningless career I could have gotten because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I was dealing with a breakup, dealing with not having volleyball in my life anymore, and just not knowing what I was supposed to do, and I still didn't know what I wanted to do for work.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a couple of different things for work.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I do real estate and it's been great.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't until I went through all of that.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, my notes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um it wasn't until I went through all of that that God really worked in my heart.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I look back and I even had times where I would pray for salvation multiple times.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that I ever doubted my faith, but sometimes I felt so guilty by how I've been living my life that I feel like I just need to pray again.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I know I've heard stories of a lot of people doing the same thing where they just they pray for Jesus Christ to come into their heart multiple times because they just feel like they need to do it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's just Satan getting into your head saying, Oh, you know, your salvation's not real.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, our salvation is real.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, another scripture that means a lot to me is from Hebrews 6, 17 through 20, and it says, you guys have heard this before.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It goes on and off to that.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, God does not lie, he tells us that we believe in Jesus Christ, that we have eternal life with him.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's our the free gift of salvation, and we know that to be true.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what we've done, gone through, we go to the Lord and we ask for repentance.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have security in Jesus Christ.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: He offers us that promise.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I like that scripture too.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then also another one that I really like that has resonated with me is Isaiah 59, 2.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but your iniquities have separated you from God, your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going through a Bible study in Isaiah right now with my friend Abby and actually Malba too.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're homies.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Malba and I are homies.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, really, when we're sinning or living a life of sin, or just we make poor choices, we're separated from God.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: We need that, we need to ask for forgiveness so that we can continue to have that relationship with him.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so grateful for the things that I've gone through because without them, would I be close to God the way that I am today?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Something else could come along, it would draw me near to him.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I would never want to go through all of my surgeries again.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Never.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it's because of those and how my life changed after I had to let go of volleyball, realizing that my identity is not volleyball.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: My identity should be as a child of the true king, the one lord of our life, that um really changed my perspective.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I started coaching a couple of it's been four years now, but I coached for a few years, and I was like, maybe this is, you know, this will help me feel good.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'll enjoy volleyball.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I hated it.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I did not like coaching.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard because I had this passion for volleyball and I knew I was good at the game and I understood it, and I'm trying to coach these girls that don't care.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the talent that I want them to have.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so frustrating for me because it's like, oh, I built my whole life about being able to do this on the court and my whole life being about that, and I can't get these girls to come to the gym and show their dedication, you know.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And now I have a healthy relationship with volleyball, I officiate, and I've had to look at it through okay, this is something that I can find some joy and happiness doing, but it's not my identity, it's not how people need to know me.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And also today I get to serve with the youth group, and that's a huge blessing.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Two of my bestest friends I know from the youth group, Caroline and Abby, and I'm so grateful for them.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And just the way that God opens your heart when you get to work with the youth group, because they teach you, even though you're teaching them and working with them and maybe guiding them.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: God just uses them to open your heart and to draw you closer to him.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to see if there was anything else I was gonna say.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know there was.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I guess I was also gonna say I had mentioned that I had nine knee surgeries, and I had one in high school, and then I had three or four when I was in college.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And while I was in my last two years of college, even though I wasn't playing school ball, I was playing co co-ed, like with men and women together.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would play sand and I would play indoor, and then I ended up tearing my knee again.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And by that time, I just really felt ridiculous.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost embarrassing at that time because it's like I literally can't step on the court without getting hurt.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So frustrating.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I remember just falling down, just crying every time it happened, just crying all the pain.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really frustrating this time going through the process because I wasn't in college.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the staff, the school, the athletic program walking me through all of that, them handling my appointments and me just showing up.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: This time it was me handling everything on my end.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess this is where my cochra implant does come into play just a little bit.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because I have a cochra implant, I'm not supposed to have MRIs because it just could essentially destroy the inner piece of my ear.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And no one had ever told me that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I've had multiple MRIs.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe it's really not that big of a deal, or maybe God was just protecting me from that.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I could not get help.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I made so many phone calls, I felt so much frustration.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Well, we can't help you unless we see an MRI.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say, I can't have an MRI.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And one day, after being told no so many times, I remember I was on the phone, just I was angry crying, I was sobbing.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, I think my mom, I told my mom to talk on the phone because I was angry.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to yell at the lady.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't her fault, all that.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But all of those struggles were just a reminder of how much I needed God, just trusting in him and allowing him to help me.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And since then, I have not played.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had to go through a few more surgeries.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And after I recovered from my ACL, I spent a year tiptoe walking.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So just about two years ago, I had spent the whole year tiptoe walking.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't run, I couldn't fully extend my leg.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I finally went to a great doctor who had told me that my my nerve in my knee was completely entrapped in my scar tissue from all of my surgeries because my knee was such a mangled up mess.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So he helped me.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I went in and had a surgery and I had to go through another round of PT.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I look back at it and I've spent almost two years on crutches.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent over two years in rehab, like when you add everything up.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of funny because no matter how much I want to plan my life, God's ways are higher than my ways.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if something that I plan is gonna fall through, he's got me.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just very grateful that all of my trials have led me closer to him and not a way, because I know people do fall from the faith.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they blame God, they blame other people.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: But we live in a fallen world, but we serve a God who is perfect.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm so thankful for that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.