I returned home with my teammates, and as we said our goodbyes at the airport I could barely hold back the tears. I knew that was a true goodbye for me, but they didn't know. I wanted to tell my family first. When I returned home I sat down and told them the news. Then I called my coach. She had just been with me in Europe, and she had kept us there to train for the Olympics-and now I'm telling her that I am leaving.
Of course, "because God told me to" does not go over well with someone who is not Christian. The reaction I got from most people was just terrible. They thought I was using my faith as an excuse. They thought it was the biggest cop-out they had ever heard, that I was just tired and wanted to quit.
People don't believe that you can hear from God. But I did. I heard from God. And I was going to do what He said.
A woman from USA Gymnastics spoke with me and my coach. "Maybe you can take a break for six months," she said. "You can have a walk-on spot for the national team. If you feel like you can, then come back." People would have freaked out if they had known the offers that were being made to me. I appreciated what they were trying to do for me, but I knew it was over. I didn't know what was next, but I knew that my career in rhythmic gymnastics was finished.
Did you have a sense of why God was calling you to leave rhythmic gymnastics?
One of the greatest lessons I've learned through this experience is that when God tells you to do something, you simply do it. You don't have to know why. I am so glad I did what God told me to do. There have been other times in my life when I wanted to know why God was leading me to do something, and since God didn't show me why, I chose my own way. But with the decision to leave rhythmic gymnastics, I was so physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted that I didn't even ask why. I was numb from being a gymnastics robot. The world around me wanted to know why, but I was happy to do what God told me to do and I trusted that God had my best interests at heart.
Yes, viewing the situation naturally, I was weary. And there was a sense of relief in my heart when I retired, because I was exhausted but also because I was following God's will. I had full confidence that I had made the right decision -- and nothing else mattered. Let the world reject me. I am the only one who has to go to sleep every night at peace with what I do. I'm the one who answers to God. Nobody else.
So whether other people liked it or not, it was not I who made the decision. God made the decision for me, and I was just being obedient.
Now, looking back, I can see that God saved me from a lot of ugliness. Making the Olympic Team is not everything. Back then, in the natural way of thinking, I certainly thought it was everything. When you're a gymnast, that's your whole identity, your life. It's what you do, what you breathe, eat and sleep. That's gymnastics. The clothes on your back, the patch on your shoulder, the logo on your leotard, they all declare your identity as a gymnast. You do home school in order to train. You leave your family in order to train. You wake up and go to practice; you go to sleep, and get up and go back to practice. That's the life of a gymnast.
God graced me to make that decision and walk it out. Then the real world hit me like a ton of bricks. There was a supernatural grace that helped me out of rhythmic gymnastics, but then I had to deal with all the consequences and the unhealthiness that I had absorbed in the rhythmic world. It was very hard. I got suicidal. There was a lot of counseling and I had to recover from having my whole identity in something that was now gone.
So it's not as though I made the decision, and everything worked out perfectly. But I've never had a second thought about retiring. If there are two decisions I'm completely convinced I made the right way, they're the decision to get saved and the decision to leave gymnastics when I did. I can bank on that. God made it so abundantly clear for me, and it had to be that clear in order for me to leave. That's why God made it so apparent, because He knew that was what it would take. Other than God telling me to leave, nothing could have made me do it.
Was it difficult to leave gymnastics behind?
I missed my teammates deeply. They were like sisters to me. As far as the sport goes, I was done and didn't look back -- but the world looked back for me. To the rest of the world, it seemed as though my life were over. To me, my life was just beginning. Obviously God had something else for me to do.
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