The Courage to Let Go

At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles was the most dominant gymnast the world had ever seen — four Olympic golds, nineteen World Championship titles, skills so difficult they bore her name. An entire nation expected perfection.

Then she stepped back. Mid-competition, Biles withdrew from event after event, revealing she had lost her air awareness — what gymnasts call "the twisties" — a condition that at her difficulty level could be catastrophic. Critics called her weak. Commentators questioned her courage.

Two years later, at the 2023 World Championships in Antwerp, Biles returned and won four gold medals, becoming the most decorated gymnast in history. But what made her comeback extraordinary wasn't the medals. It was the freedom she carried. She competed with joy instead of obligation. She smiled between routines. She breathed.

Paul wrote, "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" (Galatians 5:1). Sometimes our heaviest chains aren't iron — they're other people's expectations, our own perfectionism, the crushing need to never disappoint.

Biles found freedom not by pushing harder but by letting go of what was destroying her. That is what grace does. It gives us permission to set down the weight we were never meant to carry and discover that the Almighty's delight in us was never about our performance.