A small thank you and with a big testimony
My dear friend and family. Just a short part of my testimony to thank you for helping me through a very tough time with your prayers and friendship. Love you all so much.
by Leana Joubert
4 years ago I felt called to cycle full time. I believed God has placed me in Stellenbosch and given me a passion for cycling that is difficult to put into words. But with this passion also a responsibility and platform to spend a lot of time with athletes who are hungry for something that no athletic achievement or measure of success and fame can ever fulfill. A hunger for Him. These athletes, my dear friends who I love and care for so so much, are so thirsty for something more but they will not look for or find a relationship with God in church. I felt called to love and serve them on my bike.
God opened big doors for me that I never imagined possible. I started out as a fun rider who was terrified of any gravel or technical mountain bike riding. My journey soon crossed with a group of very experienced cyclists in 2010 who mentored me in my first two years of riding and soon I was racing with a good measure of success. After my first season of racing I signed a contract with a professional mountain bike team. The better it went with my cycling, the further my heart grew away from God and the family and godly friends to help keep me on the right path. I felt I could cope well on my own. I also had a very unhealthy relationship with my new coach which I absolutely worshiped. It still went okay for a few months but I never felt the dancing feeling on my bike anymore. There was so much pressure from within and outside and my performance went from bad to worse with some glimpses of hope here and there but I was trying so hard and growing more and more selfish and bitter and proud. I longed for my performance to define me.
Then my world collapsed.
I became very ill in the start of the 2013 season. I continued racing. I was so bitter towards our team manager and coach and wanted to proof myself even though my body was completely broken. After about 4 months of trying to squeeze the last life out of myself I got diagnosed with Glandular Fever. I was very relieved because at least all the symptoms had a name now. I went on a mission trip to Zambia with the hope that when I returned I would be healed and rested and could start new again. Little did I know that the worst time was still to come. I had to give up my dreams of ever riding my bike again. I lost my contract and job and had to return all the team bikes. I was left broken. I was so so so mad at God. For taking everything away. For giving me promises and dreams and then taking them all away. I was crushed and thought of taking my life many times. There was no hope. I couldn't even walk the dogs - I was bone tired all the time. For months and months I felt like I had flu. My muscles was aching and I was dizzy and dead tired. The months felt like a lifetime. I shied away from people because I felt so ashamed.
In November - almost 8 months later - my road crossed with a very good doctor in Stellenbosch. Even though the virus was not active anymore, my body was still broken. Very slowly and steady with the right treatment God started to heal my body. But more than that God healed my heart. Of so much bitterness, pride, emotional adultery, idolatry. There was a song that I listened to from Matthew Mole with words that said :" When we could see the darkest ending, You (God) see the restart." God gave me a restart. Rick Warren - a very well know pastor in America - lost his son to suicide during the same time and I listened a lot as he talked about his own process of grief. He said that when we experience such incredible loss and pain, we do not need explanations. We need God's presence. In that incredible hopeless time God was the Only One I could hold on to. He was and is so real. I couldn't understand anything. And nothing was instant. Everything was a slow process. However everything that I've built my own identity on was taken away.
God is enough. I know it now. I know now that He can take pieces of shattered glass a make a new mosaic picture. A better one. A beautiful story.
I got a second chance.
God opened doors that only He could open. I got a new bike sponsor in December. A good and very experienced rider friend is coaching me and a few weeks ago I signed a contract to ride for the SasolRacing Team this year. A dream team with solid mature riders. I am healed. I'm riding my dream race with a dream partner - the Absa Cape Epic - in two weeks. More than I could ever have asked or imagined.
All glory to You God, my precious Father. I thank You so much for Your complete restoration. But also for the pain and hardships that will come again in all of our lives so that we may know that You will never leave or forsake us. That You have a bigger story. Keep us on Your path Lord. Let us run in the path of Your commands. May we all know and experience Your presence on our mountain tops but even more in the valleys of our stories.
Amen.
Can anything separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can troubles or problems or sufferings or hunger or nakedness or danger or violent death? But in all these things we are completely victorious through God who showed his love for us. Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35, 37-39 NCV)