UNC Tennis Caroline Price

Describe Your Relationship with Christ.

I grew up in a Christian family. I was blessed to have father who was a successful Christian athlete as my role model. I went to church, studied the Bible, went to a Christian high school, and even had a Christian tennis coach but Christ was not a priority in my life until the end of my freshman year at UNC. I knew what it meant to be a Christian in my head but it was not in my heart and I had not fully surrendered my life up until that point. I had everything the world said would make me happy. I had a loving family, supportive friends and boyfriend, success in my sport, and had received a full scholarship to my dream school but I still was not happy and felt an emptiness inside like there must be something more. As an athlete, I believed that in order to get something you had to work for it and be good enough.  I knew I was missing God in my life so I began to try to earn my way to God and kept falling short. There were certain things in my life that I wanted to change but I couldn't on my own. I began to attend the Summit Church near school and God began to open my eyes to His unconditional love and grace for me. During this time God always loved me and was there for me through my ups and downs. I had always been trying to fill the void with everything and anything but Him, and He still waited for me. My pastor, J.D. Greear, puts it in these words "We are changed not by being told what we need to do for God, but by hearing the news about what God has done for us". For the first time in my life, this became real to me. I understood that God's grace in sending His Son to die on the cross for me is a free gift that I can never earn. I am still a work in progress but as I grow closer to Him I began to see things through his eyes and my desires are changing.

How Important Has God Been to Your Success As An Athlete?

- This year I had more injuries than I have ever had before yet I had more success on the tennis court. I had a break out fall season and made it to the round of 16 in singles at the ITA All-American tournament. I had an overall record of 24-3 in the spring and proved to be one of most consistent points in the country. I won 19 consecutive matches to open the dual season and helped my team win the ITA Indoor National Championship. My team was ranked number 1 in the nation for most of the season and won the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season title. My team made it to the elite eight of the NCAA team competition and I ended the season making it to the round of 16 in singles at the NCAA tournament. I was named to the ITA National Indoor All-Tournament Team, All-ACC, and became an All-American. This had always been a dream of mine. This was such a "God thing" because it would seem that I was not healthy enough to accomplish any of this but He gave me the strength. I write "HONOR" on my right wrist while I am playing to remind me to honor God on the court in everything I do.

Do You Have Any Favorite Bible Verses?

1 Corinthians 15:10
"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them -- yet no I, but the grace of God that was with me."

Ephesians 2:8-9
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."

Romans 8:31
"What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"

Deuteronomy 31:6 
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Isaiah 40:31
"But those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint."

What Are Your Ambitions For the Future?

 - My ultimate goal in life is to grow closer to the Lord everyday. I would love to continue playing tennis if that is how God wants to use me. I am praying to see where God leads me next. In school I am working towards a major in Communications with Speech Pathology and Coaching minors. In my heart I feel that God is leading me to mentor younger girls whether in tennis or something else.

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UNC RHP Benton Moss

Describe Your Relationship with Christ.

My story begins with the typical drug experience.  From a young age, I was ‘drug’ to church and ‘drug’ to Sunday school afterwards, but to no avail.  I did the right things that I was told the ‘Christian’ was supposed to do, said the Nicene Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and even volunteered once a year! I was sure that I was as righteous and holy as any other good Christian was. Of course I was a moral young man and I knew that I was performing my ‘Christian duty’ to the ‘t’.  Why did I do these things? I must credit my parents for raising me to always do not what was easy but what was right, no matter what.  However, beyond the outward appearance of adhering to the ‘Christian way,’ the motives of my heart could not have been further from what Christ would ask of one of his disciples. I was motivated by what others thought of my actions and found myself in an endless cycle of attempting to justify myself with ‘good behavior’ and ‘good deeds.’  My heart fed off of the compliments of others and it sought their attention rather than seeking God’s approval and rest first.  Little did I know, God would expose my lies to my soul and convict me of His true Gospel.

            

This cycle of self-justification continued through high school until I reached my senior year.  Unfortunately however, like many young believers before me, and many to come, I entered a time in my life where my faith seemed less than real. Ironically, this very crisis resulted from reading a copy of David Platt’s Radical. The book literally ripped my heart open and watched while my soul bled out every bit of the moralistic ‘gospel’ I had lived my whole life. It truly was radical.  It challenged me to my very core to be either one or the other: a committed follower of Christ or a follower of the rest of the world. The one thing I learned from this book was that there could not be any middle ground for Christianity. Either it was everything or it was nothing to you. After reading this book, my faith seemed admittedly stale and out of place in my life.  I read my bible before laying my head to sleep every night, but after reading each passage, I can remember thinking to myself and wondering whether any of this nonsense was even true. Did this even happen? How can I know any of this to be true? Does God even exist? It seemed that I was not such a committed follower of Christ after all. I simply didn’t want to believe. My thought process and faith went south, very quickly. I truly can remember thinking to myself how much of a hypocrite I was because I lived my life claiming it was a result of the Christian faith and yet seemed to doubt the very truth of Christ in my heart of hearts. I felt dead inside and it seemed like I was a kid groping in the dark to find the switch to the lights. 

           

I’ve always been a nerd. I’ll admit it. All of you athletes who hide this secret part of your person, please don’t! Be open about it; it’s never a bad thing to be intellectually interested in something! Anyways, the combination of the jock baseball player and the intellectual scholar rarely combined, but somehow they both found their homes within my soul.  My problems of faith stemmed from an intellectual nature: ‘what about evolution? Is there any justification for the existence of God? Moreover, what about the Christian God? Better yet, why all this pain and suffering in the world if there is a so-called loving God?’  So many questions, and yet it seemed there were an infinite amount of answers to each question.  I was a senior in high school seeking answers with the ferocity of a lion seeking its prey.  I stumbled on the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and the likes of the greatest scientific atheistic thinkers of our time. I even looked over Nietzsche and Sartre. Yes, I’ve been there. Their theories were purely atheistic and wove a cold, heartless story about the universe and life on earth.  They sounded so right, and yet something within me thought that to listen to only one side of the story would be a terrible crime against Truth. The only problem?  Where were the greatest Christian thinkers of our times with their answers?  I couldn’t seem to escape these stumbling blocks to my faith simply because I could not find an equally valid opposing, Christian view that supported a loving God’s Incarnation in Christ.

            

During this internal war being waged within my soul itself, I continued attending church and continued to feel further and further from faith in God.  I prayed daily that, if God even existed, that He would reveal the truth to me.  I wanted to find the truth above all. I didn’t care if it meant atheism or if it meant Christianity or some other form of religion. I just wanted the truth. Here is where my uphill climb began. Let me introduce you to three fine men. Dr. William Lane Craig, perhaps the least known of the three I will tell you about, was one of the people I stumbled upon while looking for answers regarding the truth (or falsehood) about the Christian Faith. His website, reasonablefaith.org, is literally a library of Christian apologetics materials where he has written hundreds (perhaps thousands) of essays defending the Christian worldview. Needless to say, my prayers had been answered.  This was only the beginning however! I began to read his essays with a vigor that couldn’t be quenched. Something deep inside of me began to click, my faith began burn again, and I became slowly and surely reconnected with the possibility of a life in Christ. Then came my good friend, Dr. Timothy Keller. He pastors a church in New York city and authored the book that truly connected the dots for me in terms of a life of faith: The Reason for God. I truly recommend this book for skeptics, believers harboring any doubts, and believers strong in their faith. It opened my eyes to the philosophical truth of the Christian Gospel as a whole.  I read this book once, and then when I finished it, began it again and poured over its pages for hours to understand how the Gospel of Christ was so relevant today and why the Gospel was timeless, for all nations.  Last of all, my favorite writer of all time, and probably the best known of the three: C.S. Lewis.  He is most likely the timeless figure because his writings have withstood the test of time for decades and I believe they will for centuries to come. I read Mere Christianity for the first time in my life, and the truth clicked. I was presented with the real, true Christian Gospel: God’s love for us was perfect and infinitely selfless because He had nothing to gain by gracing us with mercy and forgiveness through His son Christ Jesus’ death at Calvary.

           

For the first time in 18 years, the Holy Spirit convicted me of the deep truths held in the Gospel.  It was always there, but this stony heart rejected it time and time again on the basis of stupidity (‘intellectual’ objections).   Indeed there are absolutely beautiful cases for faith, for the existence of God, for the historical basis of the resurrection of Christ, and the list goes on.  But these alone will not bring us back to God.  They will only convince us that there is a door that leads to the other side.  It is at the encouragement and, for some, push of the Holy Spirit that we choose to open this door and explore the wonders on the other end. For those of you who have these questions, I pray for you that you will not give up the search for the truth.  The answers are all there waiting to be discovered; simply have faith that the truth will present itself in God’s perfect timing!

            

In conclusion, I want to present two small points to learn from my story.  First, we must remember that each person has his or her own story that has been woven throughout life like tiny brush strokes that make up the grand masterpiece of the world today. Their experiences shape their faith.  My experiences shaped mine. Yours will also shape and define you. Whether people’s problems involve a physical addiction to substances, addictions to behaviors, suffering from seemingly unnecessary pain, or intellectual stumbling blocks to the Gospel, they are all in the same boat: their basic need is to not only find, but also experience the truth of Christ’s redemptive work at Calvary.   Only then can the sinner fight their battles and wage war on the Enemy.  So, let us strive to seek the Truth and the Truth alone, and to obey it.  Second, I would like to end by showing that at the center of the life of every person is the desire for self-justification. We all want to be justified in our ways, in our life, in our very existence.  I wanted answers to my questions so that I could justify my own faith, my own beliefs, but I wanted truth, not some false doctrine. Just as well, those who suffer substance or behavior addictions fill their hearts with passions that only Christ’s selfless love can eternally satisfy. We all fill our hearts at some point with temporary substitutes for the one, true, eternal satisfaction: Christ, who justifies us before God despite our sinful state.  No matter where our story begins, leads us, or ends, there is one common element among them all: we all were made vessels to be filled with Love and experiences that justify our existence. We now have a choice, and indeed face it each and every day: to fill ourselves with an eternally sustaining love and experience in Christ, or to substitute ever fading passions of the world.

How Important Has God Been to Your Success As An Athlete?

- God is my stronghold, or rock, or baseline, or objective standard, or whatever you'd like to call it. But He is the one thing I can always depend on in a way that nothing else in life could ever replace. It is particularly difficult being a collegiate athlete because it takes a toll on your body and there are of course huge temptations in college, however, those come and go, but God never does, nor will He ever.

Do You Have Any Favorite Bible Verses?

  

Isaiah 40:31 

"For those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint."

Hebrews 11:1 

"Now faith is confidence in that which you hope for and assurance about what you do not see."

What Is Your Opinion on God Using Ordinary People?

- A pastor asked his congregation: which of you were #1 in your class? captain of the athletic teams? make over 6 figures? went to an Ivy league? would you stand up? Ok. the good news is that God can use you.... too. but the bad news is that your strengths are what you lean on a lot of the times, and it can be tough to learn to completely lean on God when you have such strengths. so be wary of relying too much on your OWN performances and talents, and rather, rely on GOD's performance daily, that you might be humbled. IT is the people who are seated around you right now who are God's first choice. ordinary people making an extraordinary difference every day. ‘I know it is humbling for a guy like me to hear that, but it's true. I have to learn daily more and more to rely on God's strength, and not my own talents and performances even though I am a decently high profiled guy around campus. So it's a challenge from that perspective, but I still believe God placed me in this position for a reason. Long answer short, I believe the ordinary person is God's #1 plan.

What Are Your Ambitions For the Future?

- I'm honestly still trying to determine my future. I am entering my junior year, which means I'll be eligible to get drafted for pro ball, so wherever God leads, I will surely follow. 

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Wright State G Abby Jump

Describe Your Relationship with Christ

I've always been involved in the church since I was young. My parents never forced me to believe in God, I was only taught how great he was from a young age. I never fully understood until I was in second grade, I had my first experience with the Lord and just how great he really is. My mom had a double stroke when I was only 8 years old. Forcing her to be hospitalized while the doctors figured out a plan. They gave her a 10% chance of ever walking, talking, or doing anything on her own again. For 4 months I was without my mom in my daily routine. My mom is very strong in her Faith and that's something I always have admired about her since I was young. Even though at the time she couldn't say it, I knew she would never give up. As a family we continually prayed for God to give her the strength to get back on her feet.

One day while sitting in the hospital with my mom, a young man walked into the room. Dressed in faded blue jeans and a plain black t-shirt. He had medium-length dirty blonde hair and his eyes were dark brown. He smiled at me as he walked in the room but never said a single word. The man laid a small card on the night stand next to my mom's hospital bed, then turned and walked out. I never saw him again, but I could never forget his face, what he was wearing, or his smile. On the front of the card read a single verse, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". That was so powerful to me, and especially my mom. When she woke, I told her about the man and read the verse on the card. We continued to read it over and over again to her. My mom believed it thats for sure, because within 2 1/2 weeks after the strange man wondered into her room, she was walking, talking, and finally home! To this day, I believe that man was an angel. I knew my God was amazing at that point.

When I was born my dad was a high school boys varsity basketball coach, so I practically grew up in the gym. Most little girls collected barbie dolls, I collected jerseys. I grew to love the game more and anything. While my mom was in the hospital I resorted to basketball, and devoted myself to the game. I was only 8 years old but I was working on my game constantly. The gym quickly became my sanctuary. When I was 10 years old, my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I "grew up". I knew in my heart exactly what I wanted to do. She had me write it down on a piece of paper that I still have today, "I'm going to play division 1 college basketball". She told me to hold on to this, stick to it, and with my Faith in God, I can achieve it, no matter who has doubts.

This is when I had my second encounter with my Savior. I come from a town where sports is everything. The gym is packed on Monday nights and the football field is always crowded. However, very few athletes play at a higher level than NAIA or Division III. Since I was in the 6th grade I had numerous coaches tell me I would never make it, I was never going to be good enough, or I was too little to play at such a high level. When I got to high school I was at the top of my game, I started varsity as a freshman, and I played AAU for a top program in Kentucky, which allowed me to get a lot of exposure from colleges. My sophomore year I was 5'4 and barely weighed 100 pounds soaked & wet. I started receiving division 1 offers which meant I started receiving more harsh words and mean comments. My car was keyed several times. I never wanted this to happen, I was just following my dream. Even with all the things said and done, I remained true to my word and God. I decided to commit to Morehead State University, but when the coach left and went to Wright State University, I followed him there. All through high school I was strong in my faith and I always made point to thank God for all the continual blessings He's given me. But I wanted to grown closer with the Lord. More than anything I wanted to know "why me?", why was I given these gifts? I'm just a little 5'6 blonde headed girl that can play basketball. More importantly I wanted to know what my PURPOSE was in life. The week before I left for college I made the biggest decision of my life and was baptized. 

A week later I was at Wright State living my dream and doing what I always knew I would. It was a tough first week. Trying to get use to the transition and classes, I just needed a break, for a few seconds to relax and get back on track. As I walked into my team lounge I saw a man reading his bible. He introduced himself and we talked for awhile about both of ourselves. Before I left I thanked him for talking with me, and he smiled and said "you will know when you feel at peace". I thought what in the world does that mean? My freshman year I decided on being an art major but I never really knew what I wanted to do after basketball. I wasn't completely happy with my major but I just couldn't decide. Towards the end of my freshman year I was approached and asked if I wanted to workout and mentor an upcoming 7th grade girl who is going to be a huge basketball prospect. I gave it a try and after the third workout with her I went home and cried. I wasn't even sure why I was crying, until I remembered what that man told me at Wright State. I never felt more at peace with myself, I knew what I was suppose to do after basketball and more importantly, I knew my purpose. I trusted the Lord completely to give my life purpose, and guess what? I found peace. I discovered the significance, satisfaction, and security that I had been searching for since high school. 

Now a year later, I'm heading into my junior year of college. As a leader on the Wright State women's basketball team, I am exactly where I am suppose to be on and off the court. I am not leaning on my own understanding but trusting the Lord with everything I have. I play division 1 college basketball, I'm working on my coaching career and getting my name out there, I received an internship with Athletes in Action, and I'm loving life and how amazing God truly is. I know now my mission is to use this basketball platform i've been blessed with to help athletes grow on the court but also with the Lord!

How Important Has God Been to Your Success As An Athlete?

- My success would be nothing without God. I realize I would not have been able to do the things I have done on the court without God.  Just in the basketball sense He has opened so many doors for me since I was in high school and I realize they are all gifts. The best thing about my relationship with God is that I can put aside anything stressful or negative that comes with basketball because I am second. I play for Him and his glory. I play for an audience of one and that is all that matters! To give your best and remain who you are in Christ is the mark of a successful total athlete.

Do You Have Any Favorite Bible Verses?

Philippians 4:13

- Although that tends to be a lot of athletes favorite verse, it really hits home for me. I’m faced with many obstacles and tribulations on and off the court and it always helps to be reassured that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. 

 Genesis 50:20 

“But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good…”

- It is always important to remember that there is a blessing in every situation and God can turn around anything and make it good through Faith.

What Are Your Ambitions For the Future?

- I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do after college basketball but I realized when I stopped looking for my purpose my purpose came looking for me. That is when I realized God gave me this basketball platform for a reason. I want to go right into coaching basketball at a collegiate level. I realize it is going to take several years to get in the position I want to be but I know this is my calling. I didn’t lean on my own understanding and trusted the Lord with everything I have and I now know I am exactly where I am suppose to be. Ultimately I’ve been blessed with these gifts and now it is my turn to bless other college athletes and help them not only grow on the court but with the Lord as well.

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