Running Free on Her Own Terms

In the summer of 2021, Simone Biles stood in the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo as the most decorated gymnast alive — and she walked away. Midway through the team final, she withdrew from competition after competition, battling a terrifying condition gymnasts call "the twisties," where the mind loses its sense of position in midair. The world was stunned. Some called it weakness. Others called it quitting.

But Biles understood something profound: she was trapped — not by a lack of talent, but by the crushing weight of everyone else's expectations. She had become a prisoner of her own perfection.

Three years later, at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Biles returned. She won three gold medals and a silver, performing with a joy that was unmistakable. Reporters noticed something different about her. She was smiling — not the practiced smile of a performer, but the unguarded grin of someone who was finally free.

Paul writes in Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." So many of us live enslaved to expectations — others' approval, our own impossible standards, the relentless need to prove ourselves worthy.

The freedom God offers is not permission to walk away from everything. It is the power to come back whole — no longer performing for the crowd, but running for the One who already calls you beloved.