When I reflect on what denial looks like to me, there are things more obvious than others: attending lectures and labs after intense appointments, pushing through practices as much as possible, and reassuring my parents that there was no need to worry. However, one thing will always stick out most to me.
It was June 2025 when I took a call from my coach, nervously fidgeting with a piece of grass as I sat on the back porch. I didn't have good news for her. See, the plan when I finished the spring semester was that I would go home, get some serious rest, hit treatment really hard, and be back on my feet in August for volleyball season. Two months into summer, I realized that was far from possible. I was undergoing some weird and intense treatment that actually just made things worse, and I was feeling uneasy about telling my coach, the woman who had allowed me to fulfill a dream, that I was not getting better anytime soon.
Instead, she gave me the kind of solution I hadn't even thought was an option: "You can just come back in the spring for beach volleyball. Get better for a few months, and then you can come back as if nothing happened." Then she continued, "We can keep you in the group chat if you'd like that. That way you can stay connected with the team."
I immediately thanked her and explained that, yes, that would be amazing. And for a while, it was amazing. I got to see the bad pictures taken of teammates on the travel bus, hear about the bad drill at practice, and keep up to date with the schedule. Best of all, I got to feel like I was a part of the thing that was temporarily taken away.
Things shifted hard in November. I wasn't making any progress, and the uncertain timeline of the sickness weighed heavily on me more than ever before. Worst of all (for me, at least), the team was able to attend a tournament in California, where they got to experience a lot of things I could only dream of then, thousands of miles away in my childhood bedroom.
A line was drawn where I realized it was really over. I had really played my last game, attended my last practice, and exited my last team huddle. The group chat turned from a hopeful distraction to a cruel reminder. Volleyball was over for me, and that stung. The truth was, as long as I stayed in that group chat, there was always a "maybe," even if that "maybe" was just in my head.
Denial looked very non-dramatic to me. It never took the form of "I'm not sick," but instead, "I'm not that sick" and "this won't stop me." That mindset wasn't some brave or heroic way to look at life. It was a way to keep my life in my hands for as long as possible when that was not what God had for me.
One shift changed my life and allowed denial to slowly fade away.
When I first got sick, I went to the place any Christian probably goes in that scenario-Job. God gives and takes away, and control is not ours to have. As someone with a mild case of being a control freak, the thought of letting the Lord take my life and mold it to what He wants is scarier than I want to admit. That perspective took quite a long time to set in, if it has fully hit me at all.
Life is to be lived right here, in the Lord's hands.
When you face your limitations and understand that His ways are so much higher and better than yours, letting go is easier. Not easy. Not at all. But easier.
I don't regret holding onto volleyball for a little while. Allow me to clarify that denial is a very normal and natural part of grief. But eventually, denial stopped protecting me and started preventing me from moving forward. I encourage you, after reading this, to examine areas of your life that you might be holding onto that aren't for you anymore, even if they served you for a time. If the Lord wants to remove something from your life, let Him. Not because it won't hurt, but it's hard to enter into new chapters if we're refusing to close the old ones. Sometimes, surrender is the first step toward discovering that the backup plan was never second-best to begin with.
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