Handing Over the 3am What-Ifs

A month before the Paris 2024 Olympics, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone broke the 400-meter hurdles world record for the fifth time. That is the headline. But the headline sits on top of a much longer story, one she has told in her own words. For years, Sydney wrestled with perfectionism and anxiety. She carried hard questions about her identity and about whether she was "enough." The pursuit of perfection ran deep, and so did people-pleasing — the exhausting work of trying to be what every room wanted her to be, while quietly wondering whether the real self underneath was acceptable. That is a weight many adults recognize. It rarely announces itself. It just becomes the water you swim in. What changed was not a better training regimen or a cleaner mental routine. She has spoken of experiencing God's grace, love, and truth — and of coming to follow Christ. Her book Far Beyond Gold shares that faith story, and she has been open about what it means to trust God while still competing at the highest level, where the margins are hundredths of a second and the pressure never fully lifts. Faith did not remove the arena. It changed who she was standing in it with. After a race that summer, she spoke to NBC and simply said, "Praise God." She added that she had not expected the record. There is something steady in that — a woman who had spent years measuring herself against a standard, now naming God first when the standard was met. Not because the record was the point, but because the One she was handing her worth to had already settled the question of whether she was enough. Notice what the story does not do. It does not promise that the anxiety evaporated or that every race would end in a record. It records a person who faced real inner struggle, met the grace of God in the middle of it, and kept running. SOURCE: Christian Athletes Speak About Faith Ahead of Paris 2024 Olympics (Haven Today, 2024) / https://haventoday.org/blog/christian-athletes-faith-paris-2024-olympics/