OLYMPICS

Cat Reddick: Aiming for Eternity

By Shawn Brown, Andrew Knox and Barbara Cornick
The 700 Club

“I went in the game and I never came out and it was totally the Lord that, that happened,” says Cat. “When I came into the World Cup, I expected to play a little bit, but not nearly as much as I played, and I'm so grateful that He allowed me that opportunity.”

Now Cat has another chance to shine; she's made the U.S. Women's Olympic team!

“This team looks great. Playing day in and day out like this, the chemistry is coming together,” says Cat. “Every day we come in and we just want to prepare for the Olympics. I think everybody has that same focus.”

Preparing for the Olympics is exhausting. The team practices six to seven days a week, sometimes up to eight hours a day, and they practice hard.

“Physically, mentally, spiritually it wears on you, but if you have the right perspective, then you can make it through,” says Cat.

And Cat does have the right perspective -- one that's grounded in her faith in God.

“When you have a good foundation with the Lord, you really see things in a different perspective. You aim for the gold medal in the soccer aspect of it, but you aim to worship the Lord every day you go out on that field,” says Cat.

There is a lot of pressure on Cat and the team to bring home the gold, and she wants that medal just as much as her teammates do, yet God helps her see this prize in a different light -- an eternal one.

“The gold medal would be nice, and it's a nice thing to end this whole long training process with, but I think in the long run that gold medal is going to be sitting up on a [shelf] somewhere collecting some dust,” says Cat. “One day in eternity I'll forget all about it. My focus is first on God, and then on family, and then on friends, and then on soccer.”