Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Alexis Roach: Torn Between Two Worlds
SPORTS EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a series documenting the personal testimony of Farmington senior Alexis Roach, a two-year starter for the girls basketball team, which won more than 50 games during her tenure.
FARMINGTON — Spring 2017 found Alexis Roach torn between two worlds — the familiar a sophomore competing in track and field for Siloam Springs — and the unknown an impending move to Farmington.
For five months her father, Jacob Roach, commuted as pastor of Northwest Assembly Farmington campus. That arrangement was not feasible to church growth so the family agreed to move, Alexis included.
She had been the reason they didn’t move sooner, resistant to the idea of leaving established relationships.
Alexis leaned on her faith and Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV eventually decided the issue for her.
”Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.”
She finished out the 20162017 school year as a Siloam Springs Panther while her parents, Jacob and Audrey Roach, purchased a home and relocated to Farmington.
Once school got out for summer, Alexis joined them, but that was only half the battle.
“When we got here, it was not any easier. I was still so scared and fear is a big thing,” Alexis said, sharing her testimony at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event.
“You don’t think, ‘Oh, I’m scared of this, oh, I’m scared of spiders,” Alexis said.
Fear that she couldn’t get rid of on her own kept coming to her every night and every day. Tormenting thoughts caused Alexis to question everything she wanted to do.
“You just stay at home because ‘what else?’ You’re just going to be scared to go out cause there’s things that could go wrong. People won’t like you.”
There were all kinds of new relationships Alexis would have to build. She didn’t know where to begin.
“Each day was a new journey cause I had to meet a new basketball team, I had to meet new friends and then soon school had to start and that was the scariest thing of all because, ‘I don’t know any teachers,’” Alexis said.
Fear-based questions dominated her thinking.
“Who am I going to know in my class?”
“Who am I going to sit with at lunch?”
Establishing and maintaining relationships were vital to Alexis just as for any teenager.
But fear was getting in the way.
“Anxiety and fear just took place in my heart where there was no room for God and so I had to pray,” Alexis said.
Even when Alexis felt isolated, she was never alone. A whole group of people were praying for her, including her parents and her church.
Prayer became essential for Alexis communicating her need for divine reassurance.
“I had to spend a lot of time with God just to say, ‘Hey, I need you. I need peace because you have me here for a reason so there’s no reason to be scared and have fear.’”
Just as Alexis started to gain victory, more negative thoughts attacked her state of mind.
“After awhile I lost that burden, but then (fear) … came in and started throwing more lies at me,” Alexis said.
As previously experienced, negative messages came in threes each seeking to re-enforce a sense of hopelessness. “Hey, you have no friends.” “Hey, you have nobody you can call.”
“You have nobody to hang out with.”
But this time one more sinister point hammered away, eating at Alexis’ need for acceptance.
“You can’t tell anybody anything.”
Feelings of being alone took over, Alexis again felt overwhelmed. When she would get home, she cried some more and asked herself who she would associate with.
Alexis found herself cooperating with negative messages. She internalized them making a series of detrimental statements to herself.
“Nobody wants me there.” “Nobody likes me, I’m alone.”
“I have nobody to call on.” Temptation to indulge in self-pity choked off communication with those closest to her. Alexis admitted telling herself, “I can’t even tell anybody how I’m feeling right now because ‘who cares?’”
In retrospect she told those assembled at the FCA event, “That’s almost a stronger burden than fear itself.”
Alexis fought those feelings, turning to a faith-based response of prayer and reading her Bible, then repeating the process as often as necessary.
She knew she had to get victory within herself.
She was already experiencing the alternative and living a defeated life was no fun.
“The more I prayed, I had to again pray and seek God and because he had more that he wanted me to do and I couldn’t do that sitting at home,” Alexis said.
She selected a Bible verse, Deuteronomy 31:8, as her key to triumph.
“The Lord himself goes before you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, and do not be discouraged.”
Reading the Bible and praying wasn’t enough.
Alexis had to become intentional, concentrating on speaking words of life into her situation and into her destiny.
“I had to speak his promises over me,” Alexis said.
She posted Deuteronomy 31:8 everywhere, in her car, in her room.
“I had to look at it, and remind myself that God is with me. I’m not alone and that’s the same for you,” Alexis said, addressing those gathered at the FCA event.
“If you feel (isolated), if you’re scared, if you feel alone, that you have nobody to turn to, you have no friends, you have nobody to lean on in hard times,” Alexis said the cure is to remember, “You have God because he is there. He has never left you.”