After three years of collegiate cross country and middle distance track, Cornerstone junior Andi Owens is well aware of the fears of failure and the potential injuries that sports can induce. More importantly, she has learned to make running a form of worship.

“I am coming to realize that I don’t have to strive to achieve, but only to give the best portion of myself to God in praise every day,” Owens said. “God does a miraculous thing in light of trial. He brings hope.”

At the indoor track nationals meet during spring break, Owens arrived ranking No. 11 in the 1,000 meter race. She finished the race in fourth place with a school record time of 2:56, which led her being named an All-American.

Prior to attending college at Cornerstone, Owens attended Rockford High School, which she said has a very good athletics program. It is a Division I school.

While Owens was at Rockford, Dave Hodgkinson was hired as the women’s track head coach, an answer to Owens’ prayer.

After experiencing success in track in her early years of high school, she was set back with a serious injury. The injury brought her spirits down for a while.

“This resulted in a ‘Phantom Andi,’ a younger version of me whose ponytail I could never catch,” Owens said. “I was never pleased with my performances because I was comparing myself to what I used to be.”

Hodgkinson helped Owens battle her fear of failure.

“Hodgkinson realized that even though there was competition all around me, my main competition was within myself,” Owens said.

“In my senior year, I was able to break myself free from ‘her’ and take chances,” Owens said. “One of these chances resulted in [winning the] regional championship in the 1600m [one mile], where I ran a 5:07.”

For Owens, the Cornerstone track and field team was refreshing in contrast to the performance-driven emphasis that is pushed by public schools. At Rockford, Owens said she had a great coach and a few teammates rooting for her to win, but at Cornerstone she has an entire team that wants her to succeed.

“My spiritual cultivation of running as worship had just scratched the surface of what I would become in the next three years,” Owens said.

Owens said her spiritual cultivation came with pain. She has suffered an injury in each of her three collegiate cross country seasons at Cornerstone. Consequently, she says she spent many hours learning the virtue of perseverance through enduring cross training methods.

During her sophomore year at Cornerstone, she sat out the entire season due to a stress fracture.

“In addition to the physical pain, my life was interrupted with my friend and teammate Kendra Ross’ death,” Owens said. Owens said Kendra was one of the most encouraging training partners she has ever had.

“To continue running after her death was an extremely strong reminder of the accident that took her life,” Owens said. “There was not a day that entire semester I did not think of her at practice. I grew to view each race as a gift of life. Each race is a sacrifice, a painful surrender to God in worship.”

Despite all of the injuries that she has suffered from cross country, Owens said her recovery for track has been surprisingly successful every time. She said this season has been the best yet.