Kendra Nordin

I like to do road races. And I competed in my first triathlon last summer, which included swimming, biking, and running. I also play soccer and do in-line skating and downhill skiing.

For me, participating in athletics is an act of discovery. It puts me in situations that push my limits. Reading Science and Health and the Bible has given me insights on how to be a better athlete. And the lessons I'm learning in athletics teach me more about real womanhood — and ultimately about God. Womanhood is a quality of the Father-Mother God. And in sports, spiritual womanhood is expressed in power, grace, and mothering.

When I played soccer in college, for instance, I typically played the forward line — trying to score. But one season, I was switched to defense. My role was to protect the goal from being scored by the other team. At times I felt almost like a mother bear protecting her cub from being attacked. In that sense, motherhood has a place on the playing field. Sometimes, too, you express motherhood in athletics through building teamwork, encouraging fellow athletes, or even through nurturing your own spirituality.

In college, I was also a sprinter. During one meet, my coach came up to me before I was to run the 400-meter race and said, “We want you to win this race.” So, instead of thinking only of expressing God during the race, I thought, “Oh, I have to win. I have to be the fastest one on the track today.” This put me, instead of God, in the center of the picture. Thinking this way, I ran in such a way that I exhausted myself — and ended up placing third. I managed to make it to a nearby soccer field and passed out.

An hour later, a teammate woke me up and said, “Aren't you running another race?” I was still exhausted. But my coaches insisted I participate, so I didn't even warm up for this 200-meter race. Instead, I prayed.

Normally, when I run, I pray by thinking of a quality of God. Mostly, I think of power. But this time when I was settling into the starting blocks, I thought, “You are the expression of God's power.” This removed the fear that I wouldn't do well. It gave me the freedom to run with the unlimited power of God — not with my own limited will power.

Not only did I win that race, but I ran my fastest time for that season. This experience made a big impression on me. Spiritual understanding had purified my motive for running. And that, in turn, elevated me to my highest standard.

Last year, I read a newspaper article about women soccer players who didn't want to lift weights because they might appear too bulky. Yet it's important for women not to adopt the image that the world is holding up to them. It says, “This is how you need to look. To be feminine, you need to be tiny. And, by all means, don't look too strong because that's going to intimidate men.” But if a woman can't feel free to be strong and to look strong, that's limiting. Your power is an expression of God's power. It's spiritual — not tied to body. Power and beauty come from the same divine source. And they're not mutually exclusive.

The Bible says, “...God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27 ). Woman and man are created simultaneously in that account. To me, that suggests that we need to put down the notion that women are running to catch up with men in their expression of God. We need to stop thinking men are superior athletes. That's like saying men are superior in expressing God. And that's impossible.