A Note from Nancy…
How many girls are on a volleyball team?
I had the privilege of speaking to the female athletes at Taylor University several weeks ago. Some of the volleyball players indicated they wanted to learn more about what we taught at Anchorsaway. Their coach, Erin Luthy, and I set a date for us to learn together. I offered up our house for them to stay seeing as how there are six on a team; or so I thought! As we got into the planning, I was asked if I was sure we wanted to house the 18-person team. Surprise! It worked! We were wall to wall girl and had a ball with the most amazing group young ladies. Yes, they could put down food with the best of them.
What do you teach highly skilled and academically bright women? Maybe not so surprising, we taught non-stop on their true identity and God’s identity. Our goal was to answer the question: What if God is not who you think He is and neither are you?We expect Christians to love Jesus, but that is impossible if they don’t know Him by who He says He is in the scriptures. Jesus says that He loves all of us all the time-on our worst day, He loves us. He shows no favorites. He wants us to get to know Him through reading the Bible and praying. He will never abandon us or condemn us. As athletes, it was easy to see that their perception of themselves was that if they did not perform well, on the court or in the classroom, then they were losers in the greater sense of the word. If they did poorly on a test, they were “dumb.” That happens when we let the culture define us.
As we do in all of our bootcamp seminars, we taught them our framing exercise (click here) and had them practice with each other. They learned how to have conversations with and love better those who are not Christians. The girls realized that true love for another is a choice not a feeling. Healthy relationships are built on love for others as God loves us. It is not performance! At the close of our special bootcamp for them, they shared the new insight as to who and whose they were and that through it all, God loves them! They left changed women who were anxious now to love themselves and others well.