Carlee Durham

One of my biggest struggles is finding my identity in things other than the Lord. Growing up playing softball, I got burnt out a lot of the time due to making the sport my identity.

As a little girl that played softball, I thought it was normal because all my friends around me did the same thing. I played freely growing up. I had a lot of fun. All the people around me were great. But I got burnt out.  Once I got to high school, I loved school ball, but I developed a lot of performance anxiety. I was so wrapped around a fear of disappointing my peers and disappointing my coaches. I was a major people pleaser. The thought of making a single error or mistake made me shrivel up and want to hide away. I would be embarrassed.

A lot of people around me told me that it was okay to feel like that, because “that means I cared,” that if I am worried about messing up, then it is okay. But the older that I got, I kind of came to the realization that fear should have never been there in the first place.

My life was so wrapped around my sport that I struggled to figure out who I was, and what my life should look like outside the sport. It made me burnt out from softball and also made me struggle with feelings of depression and anxiety.

Growing up I have been around the Lord. My parents did as much as they could to help me learn about the Lord, but I don’t think I ever truly understood what a relationship with Him should look like. I was baptized when I was 12 years old. But I did not know the depths of that decision at the time. I just knew the Lord, I don’t believe I had a relationship with Him. By the time I was in high school, when I first started developing the feelings of performance anxiety, I kind of realized that I couldn’t hear the Lord anymore. It felt like the Lord had left me.

I remember crying to my assistant coach at the time, who was also the FCA leader, and I remember walking the outfield telling her that I couldn’t hear the Lord anymore. I went around a year or two thinking I have not felt or heard the Lord and that really left me upset. It made my anxiety worse and made me burn out on things I loved and cared for because I didn’t have true joy in my life through Jesus.

It impacted my relationships. It made me view myself less. I didn’t find myself as a daughter in Christ. I found myself lowering my standards, forgetting who I was to Jesus, and how valued I am by Him. I grasped onto people who would give me attention. People who made me feel valued, but when I did that, I was shown that they were never reliable or my source of happiness and would hurt me. It was my trying to find my value in them and getting hurt.

I got to Southern Miss; it only got worse. It felt like I didn’t receive what I worked so hard for. I didn’t think I was good enough anymore, I started to see myself less valuable. I would turn to other things not of the Lord to cope. I used it as a crutch, as a joke. I was so internally sad, I turned it around to make others laugh or make jokes. Making that my identity.

In my senior year of college, I started finding my passions. I loved the weight room, I loved strength and conditioning, so I interned with the Southern Miss baseball team for a year. It helped me pull my mind away from softball, but it still did not feel like enough.

At this time, I was still going to church, and I was going to college nights. In my mind, at the time, I was close to the Lord. I have come to realize now that I was actually far from the Lord and the enemy used that to make me think that I was growing close to the Lord so I would continue to stay away from Jesus.

The devil is a liar and manipulator. He won’t just make your life feel bad, he’ll make you feel like life is good so you get comfortable, so you don’t feel like you need to run to Jesus.

I spent my senior year battling back and forth. Toward the end I desired something bigger than what I was doing, and I knew I couldn’t handle doing it alone anymore. I wasn’t perfect, but I backed off things I was doing, and I separated from people who didn’t serve me. At this time, I didn’t see my life after college, I didn’t see myself getting married or having kids.

The Lord sent an awesome person in my life, a preacher’s kid, who taught me a lot about the Lord. I didn’t want to get to know the Lord just to get closer to him, but I feel as though the Lord brought him into my life to soften my heart, and I started to see myself wanting kids and getting married again, to have that life.

I found that I built a strong foundation on the Lord, and I started to trust in the Lord. Now that person is not in my life anymore, but I am just so grateful because now that I am here, I run to the Lord and ask him directly to take things out of my control.

I am closer to the Lord now, but the growth is never done. I, now, am starting a new job. I was a strength and conditioning assistant for a year, and now I am a strength and conditioning coach at a high school. It’s a lot of responsibility; it’s a lot of teams.

During my interview process, I just was in hopes of an interview experience. And then I got the interview. And I just prayed, “Lord, if this is the place where you need me to be, back in my hometown, let it be.” And I got the job. Did I bite off more than I could chew?

My realization from Jesus is that He has given me something bigger than myself. It is not something I have to handle on my own. This is something that I can turn to Him and hand him control and whole heartedly trust that with this, he has me. Knowing He is my rock and that no matter what I find that I am enough through Him. My identity is found in Him and not just what I do. When I don’t feel qualified, He makes me qualified. Everything I do from here on out, is trying to live a life that honors him. Take the love and grace that he has given me and give that to the kids that He has brought me to.

It is still a journey, and I don’t have to have it all figured out, because Jesus has it figured out. That’s enough. He is enough. I’m grateful for all He has done for me.