identity (noun) iden-ti-ty : who someone is
I took ballet lessons starting when I was 3 years old. 13 years, six days a week (sometimes seven), for three-plus hours a day (sometimes 12). At the minimum, that’s 12,168 hours of my life that I spent in a leotard, pulling my hair into a bun, and bandaging open blisters. Needless to say, I was pretty seriously considering a professional career in ballet by the time I turned 9 and bought my first pair of pointe shoes.
After devoting so much of my time and attention to ballet, it became impossible to separate my identity as Sarah Rose from my identity as a ballet dancer. So for about my entire childhood and adolescence, when someone would ask me who I was, I would say, “I’m a ballet dancer,” before I even said my name.
Now, I am forever thankful for the things that ballet taught me. Discipline, grace, poise, and a love for all things classical, amidst everything else. But this identity crisis became dangerous when I realized that I didn’t want to only do ballet for the rest of my life. My world came crashing down. How could I be Sarah Rose without being a ballerina? How would anyone be able to tell me apart from everyone else my age?
Partners David Boudia and Steele Johnson just took the silver medal in synchronized diving at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Any athlete will tell you that it is a long road leading up to that point full of many sacrifices, injuries, and long days training. At the Olympic trials, David & Steele were interviewed shortly after securing their spots on the team. One thing that they both emphasized strongly was that getting to that point, that dream of making the USA Olympic team, took a lot of work. But then Steele said something that astounded the reporter, and the rest of America. He said, “Yeah this is exciting, but this is not the rest of my life. Yeah, I’m Steele Johnson the Olympian, but at the same time I’m here to love and serve Christ. My identity is rooted in Christ, not in the flips we’re doing.”
David Boudia bounced right off of that by saying, “We can’t take credit for this, to God be the glory, and this is why we do what we do, day in and day out.”
Say whaaaaaaat?
Both Johnson and Boudia are Christians who don’t just proclaim their faith, but live it. Johnson has opened up about an accident he had when he was 12, when he almost died doing a dive in which he split his skull open and was saved by his coach. He has used his platform of being in the national spotlight to emphasize God’s role in his career. “God gave me this ability to dive,” Johnson said. “God kept me alive and he is still giving me the ability to do what I do.”
Likewise, Boudia has written a book, "Greater Than Gold: From Olympic Heartbreak to Ultimate Redemption," in which he said, “I’m not a diving coach who happens to be a Christian, but rather I am a follower of Christ who happens to be a diving coach.”
Late Pope John Paul II, now St. JP2, once said that, “We, as people, are willed by God; we are made in God’s image. Our dignity doesn’t come from the work we do but from the people we are.” Both Johnson and Bouda seem to have a good grip on this. They understand that there is more to life than diving; that there is more to them than their medals or titles.
Flash forward from the trials to the Olympics, where Steele and David secured the silver medal in their competition. Once again, as they were being interviewed after, they took the focus off their medals and put it back on what really matters. David went so far as to say that he experiences an “identity crisis” when he allows himself to be defined by diving, which makes his “mind go crazy.” Steele Johnson bounced off of his partner’s comments and said, “Knowing that my identity is rooted in Christ and not in the result of this competition, I could find the joy in it.”
This is so important.
We all can relate to David and Steele because we all have been in a position where we allowed ourselves to be reduced to just one thing. Whether it be a hobby, a sport, a job, or something that society wants us to be.
But you know what?
These things don’t make us who we are.
They add to what sets us apart from others, but they don’t hold our identity.
You know why? Because all those things, those attributes, are temporary. They won’t last forever. Every athlete hits his peak, and then he or she is forced, either by age or an injury, to move on. This transition causes trouble when we let ourselves to be defined by our talents; by anything other than our existence as a son or daughter of God. That is the only thing that is eternal – because it is our identity.
We are such complex human beings who have the ability to do – to be – so many things at once.
I am so much more than a ballet dancer. I am also a writer, a musician, a student, a sister, a future wife and mother and a Catholic.
Just like you are so much more than what the world tells you to be.
Yes, Steele Johnson and David Boudia are extremely talented Olympic divers. But, as shown above, they are so much more than that. They are also men, sons, brothers, husbands, coaches, who will become fathers, and grandfathers. And most importantly, they are Christ’s. And that is worth more than all the gold medals in the world.
