Ask any roller girl why she first decided to try derby and the answer will likely contain two elements. First, she had a friend who played roller derby, and that friend kept telling her she’d love it. Second, something went horribly wrong (or finally felt horribly wrong after simmering beneath the surface for a lifetime). My roller derby story starts squarely at the intersection of these two roads.

My friend Sarah (Katniss Evermean) invited me to join the Columbus, Indiana roller derby league no less than eight times over the course of our early friendship. Out of curiosity (and to support my sweet friend), I bought tickets, made signs, and attended two bouts, marveling at Sarah’s skill and courage, but so mired in the demands of my predictable adulthood that actually skating with the team seemed like a life from a parallel universe.

But then everything went horribly wrong.

I skidded through the final grueling months of a college degree that May, juggling the hearts of my kids with my hands full of hopeful ambition. When the other side of the stage I had crossed seemed to hold no promise, I prayed for purpose, which God answered by turning my tired heart toward the tiny blessings that I kept tripping over on my way to the next great adventure. I suddenly wanted to break open, available to all the blessings He had in store, wondering how many I’d turned away. My husband and I had been on a procreative freeze since our decision to adopt internationally had meant taking steps to avoid pregnancy for a time, per our agencies guidelines. Then, we brought home four-month-old triplets, which proved excellent birth control. In a sleepless stupor of survival, I counted it intimacy if I accidentally walked in on my husband peeing. Four years later, with our marital commitment all refreshed and intimacy restored, I was revisiting the Will of God with an open mind and open womb, praying for His best. My husband (admittedly slower on the uptake in this area) agreed, and we immediately found ourselves new parents of a tiny life swimming silently in my midsection.

I had never struggled with fertility and lived with an unconscious arrogance about my role in this birth miracle. Then there was cramping, and nothing would stop, and I had to explain to our five little treasures that somehow I’d carried the baby wrong. Somehow, I’d dropped it. Somehow, my body had failed us all. And I wondered if God had failed us all. Everything was broken that summer. My body hurt, and my faith floundered. I figured that He didn’t trust me to mother another. I didn’t blame him. But the doctor said that sometimes these things happen, and it didn’t mean better things couldn’t happen next time.   Determined to follow, we opened our hands and welcomed another promise into our home and into my body. But everything broke. Again. One hard Thanksgiving, I hung verses on a branch propped up in our living room, a Thankful Tree, reciting a liturgy of hard gratitude between doubled-over trips to the bathroom…..all emptied and utterly, inconceivably alone.

I really felt like anyone who looked at me could see a hole straight through my midsection, where the babies should have been. In my anger, I turned away from the Father, and in His gentleness, He let me. By January, when the announcement of Roller Derby Booty Camp at Skateland, our local rink and the home of the Columbus, Indiana Diesel Dollz, popped up on my Facebook feed, I was ready to punish my unrepentant body for its inadequacy by any means necessary. In yoga pants and ill-fitting t-shirt, I bought a fat football mouthguard, grabbed my insurance card, and set my course for the roller rink. I couldn’t know, then, that God is a huge fan of roller derby.