![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2012\/05\/Cheney.jpg\")
<\/a>Lauren Cheney: I started playing soccer because my brother played soccer. I followed everything that he did. I played on the boy\u2019s teams until I was 12. I just loved it and had a passion for it. You couldn\u2019t get a soccer ball away from my foot.<\/p>\n
Bonham: What impact did the national team have on your interest in the sport?<\/p>\n
Cheney: I didn\u2019t really get into the women\u2019s national team until the \u201999 World Cup. Then I realized how badly I wanted to play for my country and play in the Olympics. I was a nerd. I would put together team books for Team USA but it was really just all my best friends that I thought would be on Team USA with me. It made it real to me. That\u2019s when I knew I could play on that stage one day.<\/p>\n
Bonham: What was the basis for your spiritual foundation growing up?<\/p>\n
Cheney: I was raised Lutheran my whole life. I went to church on Sundays. My mom raised us in the church. It was a slower paced service. There were a lot of older people except for a few young people in the youth group. So at that time, I was going to church. I was baptized as a baby, but I don\u2019t think I really knew what it meant to have a relationship with God on my own.<\/p>\n
Bonham: When did you start to grow deeper in your faith?<\/p>\n Cheney: In junior high school, I went to some youth camps and that\u2019s where I started to discover the presence of God. I was able to experience God through the singing and by talking to other girls that had similar experiences. That opened my eyes but I still had to seek out that relationship. I didn\u2019t drink or do any of those things so I was very loyal in that sense. While I was in high school, I made the U20 women\u2019s national team. Tobin (Heath) was on that team and the entire team was Christians including the head coach (Tim Schultz). He was on fire for the Lord. I just remember praying one night, \u201cGod, I want what he has.\u201d He was so passionate and he would cry and he would laugh. I wanted that too. And that\u2019s when I really started to seek the Lord.<\/p>\n Bonham: Talk about the contrast between the 2008 gold medal and the World Cup loss in 2011.<\/p>\n Cheney: I\u2019ve learned to give God the praise in the highs and the lows. That\u2019s not easy. It\u2019s not easy to lose the World Cup and say, \u201cThank you Lord,\u201d because it hurts and it doesn\u2019t feel good. But especially at such a high level, your life is a rollercoaster. Our lives are completely full of highs and lows. I\u2019m so grateful that my confidence in Christ is never shaken. My identity in the Lord will never be shaken. My career will come and go but being faithful to that has made my relationship with Him what it is.<\/p>\n Bonham: Was the World Cup a confidence boost for you as an individual player?<\/p>\n Cheney: The World Cup gave me a lot of confidence\u2014just to know that I can play at the highest level and not only complete but play well. That\u2019s my foundation and I can go from there. Going into the Olympics I\u2019ll be a lot more confident. I\u2019m excited to play. It\u2019s such a big stage.<\/p>\n Bonham: Talk about the spiritual foundation for the team and the importance of having Christian accountability on the team.<\/p>\n Cheney: Our team is really special. We have a pretty solid group of believers\u2014Tobin Heath, Amy Rodriguez, Heather O\u2019Reilly, Jillian Loyden. We all stick together and have Bible studies. At the World Cup, we would have a church service on Sundays. We\u2019d play worship and it would be so loud. We\u2019d write church on the door and everyone was welcome. It\u2019s become not only important to all of the believers, but the entire team embraces it. I\u2019ve grown up with Tobin. I\u2019ve played with her for years. She is so reckless for Jesus. Watching her has set me on fire and she\u2019s done that for the other believers on the team. It\u2019s awesome to have so many women going through the same struggles and that we can talk to each other about it. Without other believers on the team, it would be a much more difficult job.<\/p>\n Bonham: What is the future of women\u2019s soccer and are you still fighting for relevancy?<\/p>\n Cheney: People are just more drawn to men\u2019s sports. It\u2019s a fact. Men are more athletic. It\u2019s a quicker style of play. But I think women\u2019s soccer is so important. Soccer is the biggest sport for little girls. It\u2019s so important for us to give these girls a dream and something they can aspire to be. It\u2019s not to be paid millions of dollars. None of us play for that. None of us female athletes play for that.<\/p>\n Read more of this interview with Lauren Cheney in the July\/August edition of FCA\u2019s Sharing the Victory Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Lauren Cheney has experienced the indescribable high of 2008 Olympic gold, the devastating low of falling short at the 2011 World Cup and everything in between. That wide range of emotion has both tested and strengthened her relationship with God. In this Inspiring Athletes interview, the USA Women’s Soccer star talks about how she fell…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,578,382,473,5],"tags":[847,1034,923,21,1033,484,1035,102,34,910,1017,15,922,344,1036,485,1032],"class_list":["post-2592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-athletes","category-olympic-athletes","category-qa","category-soccer","category-sports-features","tag-2012-summer-olympics","tag-amy-rodriguez","tag-dave-johnson","tag-fellowship-of-christian-athletes","tag-fifa-womens-world-cup","tag-heather-oreilly","tag-jillian-loyden","tag-josh-davis","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lauren-cheney","tag-london-games","tag-ryan-hall","tag-shannon-miller","tag-tamika-catchings","tag-tim-schultz","tag-tobin-heath","tag-us-soccer"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>And check out Chad Bonham\u2019s latest book Glory of the Games<\/a> that features 18 past and present Olympians such as Tobin Heath, Shannon Miller, Tamika Catchings, Josh Davis, Ryan Hall, Dave Johnson and Kevin Durant discussing various biblical principles that have helped them succeed as elite international athletes.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"