Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt Stop #29

I grew up watching Mary Lou Retton and each woman on the American Dream Teams after that 1984 Olympic team compete on the four gymnastics apparatuses every four years. I tend to be an Olympics junkie – men’s gymnastics, swimming, diving, ice skating. I love it all. But there’s something about women’s gymnastics. Because of where we lived, I personally had a very short-lived gymnastics season, but to this day I love watching gymnastics and have a deep admiration for the girls and young women who do amazing, crazy things with their bodies. The sheer grit and determination are awe-inspiring to me.

But my love for the sport is also much closer to home.

The sport consumed hours and years of my oldest’s life all the way through her senior year of high school. Three hours a day, four or five days a week for years. I still have a video of her completing a giant on bars in a high school competition, and it brings me to tears every time I watch it because I know how hard she fought to compete at that skill level. The amazing thing? So did most of the people in the gym that day, because many of them had watched her compete for years as well.

Gymnastics is a unique sport in the way it demands perfection and power, yet grace from its athletes.

So you could say this book is dedicated to my eldest, who committed years of her life to the pursuit of that excellence through sheer grit and determination. She also dedicated years to instilling that same love in others through coaching.

My oldest daughter is not our only child to have grown up spending many happy hours (read years) in one of our local gyms. Coach Cindy and her team of assistant coaches created an environment where, from Mommy and Me classes through Platinum Level in USAG competitions, Abigail and our three other children could thrive. Coach Cindy even created opportunities for one of my sons and his friend to compete. I will be forever and always grateful.

This is just one way that youth sports have been an important part of my family. I will be equally grateful for all of the soccer and swim coaches our children have had. I have written many books at gymnastics competitions and inhaling chlorine poolside.

I know without a doubt that my children have become the amazing young adults they are, in part, because of the many coaches who have poured into them across the gyms, soccer fields, and pools. Even on the hard days, they have learned many life lessons and grown as humans through sports.

However, I also know that not every adult takes this trust placed in them with the same care that we have experienced. I have served as an official for many years on deck at pools across Indiana, and I’ll never forget the first time I had to complete SafeSport training. I was naïve enough to believe it would relate to things like concussions and other physical injuries.

It doesn’t.

While writing this book, I dug into documentaries and memoirs that took me back to the days when the Larry Nassar scandal broke, and I scrambled to remember which Michigan campus our daughter had traveled to for a gymnastics camp. The relief I felt was nothing compared to the horror other parents experienced. Then another scandal broke much closer to home in Indiana. As a writer, there are days I wish I could write light, rom-coms. The couple of times I’ve tried (I’m looking at you, Silver Bell Secrets), it still ended up with mystery in it.

Sometimes life is hard, and there is darkness. We live in a fallen world where people hurt other people and do horrible things to them. There are days when the news alerts that come across my phone make me catch my breath and ask God, Why?

On those days, I cling to a few unshakeable truths. He never leaves us or forsakes us. He walks through the valleys with us. And I firmly believe that when we are crying, He is there with us, crying, too. That doesn’t mean I don’t have questions. Some days, the list feels like it is getting ever longer. But I do choose to trust that He can do what He promises and take the worst things that happen to us, and somehow, in ways that only He can, turn them into good. That is why I write. And that is why I write books like this. To remind us that there can always be hope.