well it's my privilege to welcome our guest today it's also baseball season everybody yeah okay just those people in the back over there okay go Dodgers all right so you know our guest is the career strikeout leader in high school for the City of LA okay so and then in college she went to Oregon State University led her team to the College World Series she then came to Talbot to study good choice right and then she is now the currently the associate one of the associate campus pastors at Azusa P
acific that's not a good choice right but that's okay we'll figure for that okay but help me welcome tatianna Leonard all right well taught Jane we're glad you're here thank you for coming okay can you tell us a little bit more about your high school career and just you know we want to hear all the things that you did yes so I will admit especially as a young athlete when I started to excel I became really prideful and so bragging on myself is gonna be a push right now so let me dig deep to that
prideful time in my life but I started playing softball at the age of 8 and I just was really good at it and God just blessed me with the ability to throw a softball really hard and to give you some perspective I started playing at 8 years old and I started and literally got that age and I was playing with my age group but once I was around 10 years old I started to play up and so when I was 12 years old I started playing 18 and under softball and so even at that time I was pretty tall I'm play
really well and at 12 years old I would get kind of like card it like they wanted to ask like is she even old enough to play at this level I'm like I'm 12 I actually have six more years at this level and so I just played really well and was highly recruited around the country and so it was just a really good fun time of my life when I got to high school I was just really determined I was like okay look I can break this strikeout record so I had 1086 strikeouts and I'm trying to remember the res
t I know I had 21 no-hitters I had 16 perfect games in which that means is no one got on base and so there were no walks no hits every batter that came up either just got out and so I had 16 perfect games and I don't know what other stats I was able to but the the strikeout record still stands today and I'm an I'm an oldie but goodie right now and so that strikeout record has still remained today yes remember I don't remember all of them but my I would say my favorite strikeouts and I had a pitc
h caught the change-up for some of you who aren't really familiar with baseball softball terminology but the change-up is you're you're basically pretending that you're gonna throw the ball really hard and you fold them by throwing it really slow and so those are my favorite strikeouts because the person is swinging and the ball is still coming and so those would be my favorite ones okay all right well you know how I think you grew up a Christian if I can remember correctly and how did your fait
h play into your softball career or did not paint yourself okay yes and so again I said I was really prideful and my success played into that and so for me I compartmentalized in the beginning where I was a Christian on Sundays and maybe Wednesday night Bible study and then on the softball field I just became this beast that just was all about winning and I used okay another confession so when I was younger one of my main struggles was that I really had a filthy mouth and so I would would I was
like I feel like I became even less funny when like I stop cursing and realize like that was sinful I was like man god I'm not funny anymore and so I was you know I would use that to motivate my teammates and so we're just in our in our Huddle's that I'm cursing and I'm like trying to encourage them and and it was just a season where I would just became a different person than I was in the church setting in the beginning and so at first it was just really all about me it was about my glory I was
looking forward to the newspaper articles that were coming out I'm glad that I'm aging myself but Facebook didn't come out into my sophomore year of undergrad and that literally if I was growing up in this time where social media is so huge that would have been a huge distraction and just motivational force for my pride at the time and so the Lord really guarded me from not having social media at the time but yeah i compartmentalize myself I was a Christian but when on the field I was it was ju
st about me yeah I love that okay well how when did it start to click for you then when did your faith and your sports like when did it like come together for you yeah so I was in I was playing in a softball tournament and again for those of you who aren't really familiar with the field on the softball field the field is flat and there's a pitching circle around the pitching plate and so in that pitching circle I would draw a tee every time and I felt like I was marking my territory so my name i
s Tatiana I'm a Taurus and I'm like okay marking my territory and I'm drawing this T in my pitching circle every single game every inning and when I would strike someone out like I would kind of strike out on the tee and so in a this time in the tournament an umpire came to me after the game yeah and he says I respect that and I said what what are you talking about he's like aren't you drawing a cross in the pitching circle and I wanted to lie so guys you have a brother in Christ as a cross I'm
pitching for Jesus and I said you know what it's a tea but it should be across and literally the next game I challenged myself and said you know what I have been playing for myself this this tea has represented Tatyana and this this needs to be a cross that I'm pitching for my Lord and Savior and so there's three strikes to strike someone out and I would usually just strike out over the tea but I changed it I said whenever I would get a strike it's for the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and
literally the next game I've learned how to play for God but then it also became like a form of worship for me and it was so crazy how a question from an umpire and I hope that this is encouraging everyone to say look when God gives you a word or an encouragement to talk to someone like that umpire that umpires obedience literally changed my life where he asked me I respect that is that our cross and it wasn't it and it became a cross from my life oh and it became a cross and it it it allowed me
to worship the Lord through my support and worship through that talent yeah Wow so it sounds like you've had to develop your identity in Christ through sports and what does that look like so how did you develop that you know I think all of us put our identity and different things whether it's our looks or academics or whatnot how did you learn to develop your identity in Christ a little bit more yeah I learned through have you ever heard the term of like sophomore slump yeah okay so I was highl
y recruited athlete and I went into Oregon State and had a phenomenal freshman season and again that even though I had that turning point in my life where I was pitching for Jesus Christ my sophomore year was really challenging I didn't play very well and and my identity as an athlete really was being challenged because I wasn't playing to my potential in my sophomore year and so in that really tough season of struggle the 'lord pushed me to say look are you are more than a softball player you'r
e my daughter I've redeemed you I have a calling your life beyond softball and so I really was able to identify that through this struggle and I think God for that it was at the time it was one of the most difficult seasons in my life but the Lord transformed my heart so much and I learned what it really meant to guard my heart because everything flows from your heart so it says above all else guard your heart because all that you do flows from it and because I was a softball player first and no
t a Christian first all of my decisions flowed out of being a softball player with this help my career would this help my stats would this help my team versus does this honor God and is this being obedient to God and so my heart was being guarded by the identity of being a softball player until the Lord took that from you a little bit and helped me to recognize that I'm more than an athlete hmm love that love that well you know after a sports match a lot of sports athletes they say that they wan
t to thank their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ do you think God really cares if they win or not you know what I'm gonna go out on a limb and I say yes Jesus like He loves us to just be excellent and all that we do and I learned in that sophomore slump that I could still be excellent I could still be a great teammate and I could still work as hard as I possibly could and the discipline that I learned in my faith should also allow me to be a better athlete because I'm learning that I'm not playing
for the world I'm playing for Jesus and I'm I can be free and light and I'm not carrying this yoke that other athletes who don't have faith they're like this is it and I'm like no I have eternity with Christ you know even though he doesn't care if I win or lose he wants us to be excellent because he's blessed us with these opportunities and so I would say yes he loves when we win and he's gonna pick up help us pick up the pieces when we lose ya know I love that all right well we're gonna think a
bout this a little bit okay we're going to invite our worship team to lead us in reflection song we're gonna invite you guys to text in and social media and questions to us and then we will answer them after our song okay so first question is this so what was the process of God breaking your pride like yes so I would say sometimes when we recognize sin in our lives we try to overcorrect and that initially is what I've done what I did and so I went from pride to Foskey millet II and what that loo
k like was in my pride I felt like I was the best to do it so I would always volunteer myself and assert myself to do things and in the foss you Millie I would sit back and I would wait for someone to ask me or call upon me and then if they didn't call upon me or ask I would be upset about it and so I tried to overcorrect and it was just working through that process of Lord I'm upset because I can't just assert myself and push myself forward and say I do I'll do it I'm the best to do it and then
I'm frustrated when I'm trying to be humble and no one's asking and I'm frustrated and so I'm like I'm just frustrated or I'm sinning like what's going on and so in that process it was me really asking the lord help me to say yes to the things that you're calling me to say yes to and so that was a big process for me where I would feel like I'm the only one that can do it and I'm the only one I can do it well versus saying Lord are you asking me to say yes to this opportunity I still have to str
uggle with that with even my speaking opportunities it's Lord are you asking me to say yes to this or am I saying yes to this so that I can list another place that I've spoken and so even God is continuing to challenge me in the platform that I have of how I can do this with humility and knowing that it should flow out of gratitude to have these opportunities versus I'm like of course you should be inviting me I'm yeah and so is a continual process so for those who feel like yeah I want to just
get to this point where I figured it out you're gonna continue to have to figure out areas of struggle and sin in our lives yeah thank you for sharing that yeah developmental approach to just keep growing in your in your walk alright here's another question how can we use our love of Christ to develop a witness of excellence so I want to tap into that season where as an athlete I wasn't doing well and so I thought okay in the excellence of playing well people will hear what I have to say about J
esus so my teammates are people around me if I'm playing well they want to hear what I have to say because they also want to play well so if they're like okay if I if I want to play well you're playing well and you have Jesus so maybe I need Jesus and he'll help me play well and so in that tough season I'll keep going back to the sophomore slump because I learned so much through the struggle even just like the song the new wine in the press scene it's like you're there's so much preparation and
refining happening in that season and so what I learned was even when I wasn't playing well I could still show my teammates my response how I'm not losing it because I'm not playing well or how I can still have faith in Jesus and how I can still share about who he is even when I have struggle happening in my life and so I felt in that season of struggle my teammates saw excellent to another level and they also saw a commitment to another level because many of my teammates if they thought Jesus m
akes me win and I'm not winning so therefore Jesus isn't real I was able to still show them that Jesus was real this is a funny thing so I wasn't playing well right and so our school newspaper they reach out to me and they to write an article on me and in my pridefulness I'm like what are you gonna write an article like what it feels to sit on the bench like what are you gonna write this article about and I go to a state secular public university and the title of the article is how I was able to
show faith to my team in this season so it's an entirely an entire article about my faith even when I wasn't playing well and it was so cool how God was able to like redeem that season for me that even Outsiders were able to see she's not playing well right now but she's still being excellent and we want to hear how she still has this faith and we want to hear how she's persevering even though she's not playing well this season yeah and that was awesome like the Lord really rewarded me to see t
hat my campus saw my faith through the struggle of not playing well and they saw excellence in me not playing well which doesn't make any sense what they saw it yeah thank you for sharing that story alright here's another question how have you found different ways to worship since your athletic career ended what was it like to choose to pursue a topic degree and start moving away from softball yes okay I'm not an athlete anymore I'm a watch washed-up athlete and I learned so much through the spo
rt of softball of just about discipline so for instance I knew that in order for me to even have a chance to play well I had to practice a certain amount of times a week on this pitch in that pitch and I knew my diet I knew I need I needed to lift weight so I knew that I had to run I have to be disciplined in order to even be in a position to compete on the field and so sometimes as a Christian we expect that okay my time with the Lord is just gonna be authentic like I hear this at APU often I d
on't know if you'll be here you know like I don't want to force it I want my walk with the Lord to be authentic and just kind of flow out of of Who I am I don't want to set time aside for quiet time with the Lord I don't want to put it on my schedule because I just wanted to be authentic you know and as an athlete I recognized that yes I had the athletic ability however if I didn't put the time in there was no way I could compete and in my spiritual life how could I think that I could even be in
a position of spiritual growth or even effectiveness if I'm not doing what it needs to be filled with God and so the discipline outside of athletics has really pushed me to see that I can worship in every aspect of my life like for instance I have a commute to APU and the Lord allows I was like lord help me figure out the theology of a commute because sometimes I can get so frustrated with being in the car but the Lord has real has helped me to realize I can worship Him in that Drive and I can
prepare my heart for ministry on that drive that I can in the mundane and just ordinary things I can include God in that and I and I just my heart and the the posture of my heart is Lord I want to be so connected to you and I want my mind to be fixed on you where breathing is worship I want to be I want I want my eyes and my mind to be so fixed on you that I'm literally walking and praying without ceasing because you are the priority and focus of my mind and heart and I've learned that through s
ports of focus and being able to lock in and be in the zone and that I can be in the zone with with Jesus every day and every second and so I love that Sports has helped me in that and that the discipline I I know we hate that word sometimes but the discipline just feels over and over flows in our lives when we connect with God I love it and we do that here too all the time just so you know okay alright here's another question you said Jesus wants us to be excellent how does that play out when w
e aren't how does Jesus use our weakness yes man when we you know you know the verse in our weakness God is made strong it allows us to recognize that we are human and we need Jesus and so if everything is going well in our lives it's so easy for us to forget that literally it's God who's waking us up it's God who's allowing us to breathe and have breath in our lungs like it's really him who's allowing all of these things to happen and so sometimes it takes this struggle it takes the the feeling
of not being excellent or adequate sometimes that helps us to recognize like Lord in the good times I needed you and even more so now in the struggle I need you and so yes the Lord wants us to be excellent and he wants us to be diligent and he wants us to be hard-working because it's a response of who he is like in view of his mercy like everything that I do is our act of worship and so not all forms of worship are acceptable to the Lord so if I know that all of my actions are worship I need to
be giving my all and everything that I'm doing and so I I pray that we can see that that in view of God's mercy this is my responses of literally the only response is to worship Him and so it may you you're striving for excellent and you may fall short but it's acceptable to the Lord because you've given your full effort and view of his mercy yeah love that here's another question for us if you could tell your freshman in college self one thing what would it be that's a good question I would pr
obably tell myself it's okay to fail because I had a really good just freshman year I would say socially athletically academically it was just such a fun and just season of life where I really thrived and I keep focusing on the sophomore season because that was a really tough time but then junior and senior year like the Lord redeemed that as well we were able to make it to the College World Series my my junior year and so got redeemed it didn't just stop at that really tough season as a sophomo
re but as a freshman I I could see that I pressed a lot and became really anxious and timid sometimes about things because I was afraid to fail and you learn so much in the failure so like say I'm just gonna give something really practical in the sport if I'm throwing a curveball and I know that I need to snap my wrist this way in order to help make that that ball spin correctly and if it if it doesn't do so then I can fine-tune it and but if it was a great pitch I would have I wouldn't have ret
hought like what could I do to make it better and so in the failure like we can learn so much and so I'm thinking I think the Lord that he allows us to fail and that he allows us to suffer because in that we learned so much that when things are going well we just overlook it yeah someone once told me failure is the best teacher and it really is right because you really know yourself and you really know what you're made of and you really trust and you really unpack what you were about again and j
ust re trust and who that is yeah I love that okay here's another question for us can this same sort of pride you experience with softball make its way into being a good Christian how can we avoid viewing faith as a competition yes okay so we when we think about like our sanctification or this process of just growing spiritually we can we can like be in these three different pockets like it's magic like it's just gonna happen like God's gonna just change me and transform me and I'm going to spir
itually farm just on its own and then you can have the other extreme where I have to work for this I have to read my Bible a certain amount of hours a day I need to pray a certain amount of time a day and then on like if I really want some extra points I need to be on my knees while I'm praying and we're thinking all these different things of like it's me that's creating all of this spiritual growth and so it feels like I have to make it happen so you have one camp that's like I'm gonna sit back
because God can do it and the other side is God can do it but I have to do all the work basically and so we have to be somewhere in the middle where it's like look I need to partner with God and yes I need to put myself in the position and like through the spiritual practices I open myself to spiritual growth but I know that only the Spirit can allow it to grow and so we can be competitive we can compare ourselves and say you know my worship or what I'm giving to the Lord is better than yours b
ecause it looks a certain way and we have to be so okay with knowing that we have unique gift mixes and personalities and and who we are is who God's created us to be and that's what the body needs the body doesn't need a whole bunch of replicas of the same people we need each other and so in that competition you can you can really start to create like your own faith in your own religion of just like okay it's about me I did that yeah I made that happen and we can actually lose sight that no is
God that is allowing that to happen so please guard your heart against the comparison it can steal your joy and it can also make you the god of your own heart because you believe you're the one who made it happen all right well Tatiana you know the last question we always ask our guests is what biblical principles help shape your thoughts for today so we'd love to hear your thoughts yes and so for you who are here you're like I'm not an athlete and some of these analogies or examples I don't rea
lly appreciate I want to help you think about Romans 12 in 1 and how it talks about in view of God's mercy present yourself as a living sacrifice and for me I had the privilege for a large period of my life to be a living sacrifice and worship through the art of sport and whatever you're caught to even if it's a secular space God is calling you and view of his mercy to present yourself in your work as a living sacrifice we know like there's so much that we can offer God but he truly knows like y
our best is yourself and so in every aspect of your life acts the lord of how can I offer this as a sacrifice to you how can how can it be you worship I saw myself as a worship leader on the softball field how can you be a worship leader in the medical field how can you be worship leader as an entrepreneur how can like in these spaces that seem like mundane areas and I'm just a Christian in that space how can you be a worship leader in those spaces and so even if you're not an athlete you don't
connect on some of those examples I pray that we can connect and knowing whatever space you're caught - you can be a worship leader through just being a living sacrifice in that space and and and you lifting Christ up and making him a priority or life that will draw people to you to ask the right questions who is a God that you serve and I've seen that so much in my life and so I want to encourage you all in that to be a living sacrifice be a worship leader in the space that God has called you d
iscover who you're called to be at Biola University a leading Christ centered University in Los Angeles with programs on campus and online subscribe for more of our videos and learn more at biola.edu [Music]
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