How Isolation Brought Former WNBA Player Charlotte Smith Closer to God
By Movieguide® Contributor
Former WNBA player Charlotte Smith knew from a very young age that basketball would be her niche.
“It’s hard to even calculate the amount of hours that I put into my craft. Because I know that almost every day, I was going to the playground or to my grandmother’s house in the backyard or somewhere in our backyard to play basketball,” Smith told The Christian Post.
However, when Smith wasn’t on the court, she was regularly in church.
Her parents faithfully followed Jesus and wanted the same for their daughter.
“When I think of my mom and dad, I think of their faithfulness and their commitment to their personal relationships with God and to their ministries,” Smith described. “My dad used to always say, ‘I don’t study the Bible to preach. I study the Bible to live.’ They both were great examples for us, and they laid the foundation for our faith.”
“And I grew up watching my mom and my dad, the love that they have for the community,” she told I AM SECOND. “They didn’t judge the people in our community. They just showed them love, and they pointed them to Christ. And so we spent a lot of time with our mom and dad in the community, trying to instill hope in the people that we came in contact with.”
She would go on to play at the University of North Carolina, but during her time in college, Smith found herself further away from God because of her involvement in “sexual sin.”
“I think a lot of the sexual temptation stems from not understanding your identity, your value and your worth,” she explained. “I think we all, at some point, want to be validated, want to feel loved, want to feel valued, want to be treasured and honored. And for me, I think a lot of that came from feeling like I had to, in relationships, include the sexual aspect of it in order for the relationship to be validated. And that’s where I struggled.”
However, once she graduated from UNC and reached the pro level, Smith dove back into “the Word of God and drawing closer to Him in that season of isolation.”
“I think what best describes my walk of faith is the shedding of layers. The good thing is that God knows our heart, even though our actions don’t always align with what we deem to be the Christian lifestyle,” she explained.
“I had to just surrender to Him. I surrendered to allow Him to perfect me in my walk with Him,” she continued. “In my walk, I would fail, fall and then get back up. It was a process of shedding. It’s like an onion when you peel back the layers. It wasn’t like I gave my life to Christ, and I did everything perfectly. No, I still struggled with sexual sin.”
“My walk with God was a walk that involved saying, ‘Lord, I want to surrender everything to allow for you to help me.’ Because we cannot do it without His help,” Smith added. “That’s why we have to be real and transparent about our faith so that other people will say yes to Jesus and allow Him to perfect their walks.”
She now uses her platform to point her fans back to God.
Last month, she posted 2 Corinthians 5:12, which reads, “We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.”
“A spectacular ministry without a sincere heart ❤️ is NOT so spectacular,” she commented.
Movieguide® recently reported on Smith’s testimony:
After playing professionally in Italy, she came back to the States and played in the WNBA, where she set her sights on WNBA All-Star and MVP honors.
But those things would never bring her satisfaction.
“Year after year in the WNBA, I would fall short of my WNBA wish list,” Smith expressed. “Finally, you hit that brick wall where you surrender to God and you realize that, like He is my hope, He is my joy, He’s my peace, and He is the love of my life.”
“And I just remember feeling like Holy Spirit was speaking in that moment and saying, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ There comes a point in time where you have to make a decision,” Smith recalled. “Are you going to give God your whole heart and fully surrender? And it was after like a lot of heartbreak I decided to redirect my focus.”
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