Paralympian Explains Why Gold Medals Don’t Bring Peace
By Movieguide® Contributor
Swimmer Jessica Long is considered one of the most decorated Olympians of all time.
She holds 13 world records and numerous gold medals, but Long realizes that none of those things will bring her peace.
The athlete was born without the bones in her legs. While at a Siberian orphanage, she was adopted by a couple named Steve and Beth Long.
“They saw a picture of me and another little boy,” Jessica told CBN, “and I think it’s so special and so incredible because they just, they really felt on their hearts that we were the children that God wanted them to adopt.”
When she was only a year and a half old, Steve and Beth made the hard decision to have their daughter’s legs amputated.
“You didn’t have to tell a girl with no legs that she, you know, I knew I was different,” Long said. “I was missing half of my body. But I really had incredible parents who really taught me that, you know, God has always had a special plan for me.”
God’s special plan for Long was to swim her heart out, and she did just that.
“Every Sunday after church we would go over to my grandparents’ house and spend time with them and they had a pool in their backyard, and I would like eat as fast as I could just so I could be the first one in the pool,” she explained. “And then I would be the last one out.”
But as time went on and she grew older, she began to understand her differences from other kids her age, and that began to cause her to question God.
“I remember being really angry,” she said. “I remember not wanting anything to do with God, and I was going in for surgeries every three months. And I mean, all I ever heard was God made me this way and I was like, ‘Hmm, I don’t think I like that.'”
Because of that anger and Jessica’s hardened heart towards God, she let swimming encompass her entire life.
“I think swimming really just became my identity because going into the 2008 Paralympics, I didn’t perform as well as I would’ve liked to,” she explained. “I was the world record holder in the 100-breaststroke, but I got the bronze medal. And one of the first things I asked my parents, I was like, ‘Do you guys still love me?’ And they’re like, ‘What are you talking about?'”
“I think in a way I felt like I could do it all on my own and I totally could, right,” she added. “I was the one going through surgeries. I was the one walking in two prosthetic legs and I was going, I mean, my legs hurt me every single day and I didn’t even want to rely on my parents, let alone someone that I couldn’t even see. And I was winning awards. I was on red carpets in LA. I was, you know, getting sponsorships.”
As Long continued to do things on her own, she began to feel an emptiness inside of her heart.
“I had just won five gold, life was great,” Jessica said, “I’d had a commercial with Coca-Cola. There was so many things again that were happening. But still, I just remember feeling really empty and just really just unsatisfied, which I was like, why? I mean, I’ve done everything that I’ve ever wanted to in this swimming journey, this swimming career, how do I still feel empty? How do I still feel unsatisfied?”
She joined a Bible study ahead of the 2012 London Olympics. That’s where her faith began to change.
“I think I was just tired of being angry,” she said. “I think I was tired of carrying all this weight. I think, you know, nothing was still satisfying my soul, and that’s all I’d ever heard my whole life, right, is God is the One. He’s the One that can fulfill and satisfy every — all of your needs.”
In 2013, Long decided to give her life to Jesus.
“I walked up and prayed with a woman that I had known and just was like, ‘I really want to give Him my whole heart. I want to pray. I don’t want a question anymore,'” she explained. “And it was a really special moment. I really do know for a fact, like I was like I gave Him all of me and I just remember feeling so weightless and so, just a part of God’s family for the first time, like really a part of it. I feel so much gratitude and love towards just everything that God’s given me, just so thankful.”
The athlete now relies on her faith for everything.
“It gives me all of my strength,” she told Celebrate Life Magazine. “I truly believe that it [her adoption] was part of God’s plan. And I’m not ashamed to say it, but I definitely believe that faith has really helped me get this far and remain sane with everything.”
Long has a full slate in Paris as she “intends to race in four events at the Paris Paralympics – the 100m backstroke, 200m individual medley, 400m freestyle and concluding with the 100m butterfly,” per Team USA.
The 400m freestyle is taking place today.
Movieguide® previously reported on Long:
Jessica Long, a 13-time Paralympic Gold Medalist swimmer, recently shared a behind-the-scenes look into her preparation for the 2021 Paralympic games in Tokyo.
“What people see is the results and the success, but not the behind-the-scenes and what we’re all going through,” the 29-year-old told PEOPLE. “Like moving away from family, moving away from my husband, living out here training five to six, seven hours a day.”
“It is all worth it,” she said. “But I’m definitely at a point where I’m so excited for that reunion and when I get to go back home.”
Long looks forward to competing in her first Tokyo event on Aug. 27.
Despite Long’s intense focus on swimming, Long said that her identity is in Christ. The Paralympian confessed that for much of her career, swimming became her identity.
“It’s taken me a long time to really work on this,” she said. “I love swimming, but swimming can’t be my entire identity, my entire world.”
