Befriending Your MonstersSample

Monster #3—Success

The belief that we are what we do is the lie behind the Monster of Success. 

Sanya won a gold medal in the mile relay at the 2004 Olympics, then in 2006 won all six IAAF Golden League events and set the US record in the four-hundred meter. Sanya entered the 2008 Olympics in Beijing heavily favored to win her first individual gold medal. But the unexpected happened and two athletes crossed the finish line before her. She would take home the bronze. Everyone was shocked.

A few hours after the race ended and the medals had been given out, all her teammates went their separate ways. Sanya took a city bus to her family’s rented apartment for the week. A few stops later, she exited the bus but didn’t recognize anything around her. Still wearing her red, white, and blue Nike warm-ups, Sanya stood lost and alone in Beijing. That was when all the emotions she had been suppressing for weeks flooded over her. It wasn’t just the loss of a few hours before but the greatest loss of her life, which had occurred weeks before, in secret.

Three weeks before the race, Sanya discovered that she was pregnant. Track is a sport of milliseconds, so even the slight weight gain from that early of a pregnancy would ensure a loss. But Sanya’s personal conviction had always been that abortion was wrong. She made a decision she regrets to this day and considers the biggest loss of her life.

Weeks later, after losing the pregnancy and the gold, she stood in Beijing, geographically lost, professionally lost, and personally lost. Yet it was in that moment that all the grief and guilt she had been suppressing to focus on earning a gold medal came to the surface. As Sanya says, it was in that moment of loss that she had the most meaningful spiritual experience of her life. She felt covered by God’s grace in a way she had never felt before or since. God met her in her moment of greatest despair.

The best thing for you is rarely when you are winning.

The worst thing for you isn’t losing.

The presence or absence of success is simply a prop, inviting us to address what resides deep within our souls. The Monster of Success invites us into the mirage of applause that drowns out the voice of God. God invites us to lose our lives so that we can be found by the One who has always been cheering for us.

What successes in your life define you? What voices do you hear inside of you when you experience failure?