See me poised in the starting blocks of the 400-meter hurdles, and you might think I have nerves of steel. After all, I’m the women’s world-record holder in the event and the 2021 Olympic gold medalist. But I’m far from unflappable. In fact, for most of my life, I was driven by fear. Fear of failure, of not living up to people’s expectations.
I defined myself by my athletic accomplishments. Nothing about me mattered if I wasn’t winning a race. It wasn’t until I suffered crushing defeats on and off the track that I turned to the only One greater than my problems, greater than my fear, and discovered my truest identity, the title that means the most: daughter of God.
Do you ever feel as if you’re being chased by fear and anxiety? I’d like to share some lessons I’ve learned in my faith journey, lessons I’ve framed through verses from Proverbs. I hope they will help bring you the peace, freedom and joy they’ve brought me.
Lesson 1: “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)
I grew up in Dunellen, New Jersey, a suburb 30 miles from New York City. Both of my parents ran track, but they never pressured me. From an early age, I loved to run.
Then I began competing, and something else took hold of me. A need not just to run but to win. On the way to a race when I was seven, I told my dad I was terrified of losing.
“If that happens,” he said calmly, “we’ll get some food and go home.”
His message didn’t sink in. The more I raced, the more I won. And the more I won, the more fear took over. What if I didn’t win the next time?
Junior year of high school, I ran so well, I made it to the 2016 U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon. Before my first heat, I looked at the runners warming up around me. They were confident women with well-designed race strategies. I was a timid 16-year-old girl. I’d never felt so undeserving.
I was so scared, I called my dad. “Can I please pull out?” I begged.
“You’re already there, Syd,” he said. “Just get the experience.”
At the starting line, my competitive instinct kicked in. I won that heat and the next. In the final, I finished third, grabbing the last spot on the Rio Olympic team. I felt relief that the race was over. Then panic.
I’d dreamed of running in the Olympics since watching the women of Team USA win gold in the 4-by-400-meter relay on TV when I was eight, but all I could think about now was the very real possibility of losing.
I made the semifinals of the 400-meter hurdles in Rio. So did the other two Americans, Dalilah Muhammad and Ashley Spencer. There was talk of an American sweep. The weight of those expectations was suffocating.
Partway through my semifinal, my will to win left me. Instead of my usual surge in the last seconds, I let up. My Olympics were over.
The fear I’d been giving in to was a trap. It stole one of the great seasons of my life. It told me, If you can’t be perfect, why even try?
Blessings can become burdens if you let fear control you. Had I known then what I know now—that I should have looked to the Lord, not other people, for meaning and purpose—I would have run for the pleasure of running. Competed for the joy of competition. Honored God for the gift he had given me: the gift of speed.
Lesson 2: “Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” (Proverbs 24:14)
I moved to Los Angeles in the fall of 2018 to begin my professional career. The 400-meter hurdles are one of the most grueling events in track. No other event requires such a combination of technique, endurance and speed. My first year as a pro, I missed too many training days. My lack of discipline showed. I had trouble clearing the hurdles. Dalilah, the reigning Olympic champion, demolished me—and the world record—at Nationals.
My anxiety ratcheted up. At the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, I stuttered on the eighth hurdle. I still finished with the third-fastest time in the history of my event. But Dalilah ran the fastest time ever, breaking her own world record.
I found my dad in the tunnel under the stadium and sobbed, ashamed because I knew things could have been different if I’d prepared right.
I thought I could find the happiness that had eluded me on the track by getting back together with an old boyfriend. Only he wasn’t interested. At all. I felt worthless.
My parents had raised my siblings and me in the church, but I didn’t really know God. I’d been avoiding him because I had this idea of him as a harsh taskmaster who’d demand that I give up what I enjoyed, including running, to serve him. Even so, my soul must have been yearning for him, because I found myself thinking, The only way I’m going to heal from this is with God.
So I started going to church again. Later, when I studied the Bible, this verse from Proverbs made so much sense. The author likens wisdom to honey. Wisdom lets you take bitter experiences and find the sweetness, the good, in them. Setbacks don’t derail you because you know that God has a future for you.
Lesson 3: “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” (Proverbs 15:22)
For so long, I thought everything was up to me. What pressure to put on myself! No wonder fear had me in its grip. It wasn’t until the Covid pandemic that I opened up to two people who ended up changing my life.
The first is my coach, Bobby Kersee. I met him in May 2020, when stay-at-home orders loosened and the track at UCLA reopened. One day, I got so fed up with my lack of progress, I started to cry. I bent over on the side of the track, trying to hide my tears.
Bobby stepped away from the group he was training and asked me what was wrong.
I’m not sure why, but I blurted, “For the first time in my career, I feel like I’m going backward.”
Bobby pulled out a paper from his backpack and handed it to me. On it was a color wheel labeled with different emotions. Angry, happy, sad, mad were in the middle. The farther from the center, the more specific the words got.
“I have a hard time expressing my emotions too,” Bobby said. “I want you to have this. Hopefully it will help you identify what you’re feeling.”
That night, I studied the wheel. What was I feeling? Angry at how helpless I felt to solve my problems. Frustrated that I wasn’t improving. Resentful about all of the above.
Putting a name to my emotions gave me hope that something could change. One thing I knew: I wanted Bobby to be my coach. He said, “I’m going to need your full trust in my plan. You have to be all in.”
I didn’t hesitate. “I’m all in.”
My college coach was big on technique, my first professional coach built my speed and power. Bobby does it all, especially getting me in the right mindset. As he did that moment with the emotion wheel, he seems to sense the guidance I need right when I need it.
The second life changer is the man who is now my husband, Andre Levrone Jr. He showed up as a follower on my Instagram that August. He’d played in the NFL and was working in real estate in Maryland. His posts surprised me. Jesus was everywhere. No separation between his faith and the rest of his life. Intrigued, I followed him back.
Two weeks later, he sent me a DM. We messaged a bit, then set up a FaceTime date. We talked about our childhoods, our families. He invited me to a Bible study group made up of athletes. We talked almost every day after that and read the Bible together.
That fall, we finally met in person, in L.A. He told me about mistakes he’d made in past relationships. He put everything out in the open. With Andre, my mistakes didn’t seem like something I needed to hide anymore.
Before he went back to Maryland, Andre gave me a study Bible. “This one really helped me,” he said. On the inside cover was a dedication. He wrote that he was excited to see me blossom and have “glorious growth.”
I did go on to experience glorious growth in my career and, more important, in my faith. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t trusted the advisers God put in my life.
Lesson 4: “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” (Proverbs 16:3)
In January 2021, Andre came to visit me. One night he suggested we listen to a sermon on Colossians 3. Verses 8 through 10 jumped out at me, especially the part about putting on the new self, “which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator.”
That’s when it clicked for me. I’d been keeping faith, family, track and relationships on their own separate islands. But the Lord wanted every part of me. He wanted my hopes and ambitions and my insecurities and anxieties. Everything.
At the end of the sermon, I knelt and asked the Lord to forgive me for trying to do things my own way. “Do your will in my life,” I prayed. “Transform me.”
An indescribable joy swept over me in that moment. Surrendering to God was not giving up my freedom; it was finding it.
All spring, Bobby entered me in 60- or 100-meter hurdle races. He knew the shorter distances would force me to confront my problems with the hurdles. I wouldn’t be able to rely on my foot speed. I dreaded those races. I didn’t perform well, even finishing dead last in one race.
One day, Bobby had had enough. “Attack the hurdles!” he told me. “Just go out there and get the job done.”
What are you afraid of? I asked myself as I dug my feet into the blocks. What’s the worst that could happen? Why not attack every hurdle?
From the moment the gun went off, I ran without fear. I didn’t win, but it was the best time I’d ever run in the 100 hurdles. I realized something: The only one holding me back was me. I wasn’t going to let that happen anymore.
The 2021 U.S. Olympic trials were held in Eugene, Oregon, the same place where I’d raced as a frightened 16-year-old. Before we left for the stadium for my event final, Andre and I prayed. He had led the prayer the previous two rounds, but this time I took it. I asked that God be glorified and give me the strength to leave it all on the track, unafraid, unashamed.
The eight finalists were called to the starting blocks. I was in lane six. Dalilah, my greatest rival, was in lane seven. For the first time at the starting line, I felt free to trust in God’s plan. There was no room for fear.
We got off to a fast start, Dalilah in the lead. I was in rhythm. When I reached the eighth hurdle, I had that feeling, that indescribable joy. Dalilah was one step ahead. By the time we cleared the last hurdle, I was in the lead. I summoned every ounce of energy I had and sprinted to the finish line. I saw the clock stop at 51.90. I’d just broken the 52-second barrier for the first time in history.
I couldn’t wait to tell people what God had done. He’d carried me around the track—for his glory, not my own.
At the Tokyo Olympics in August, Dalilah set a blistering pace. At the eighth hurdle, I was well behind. To speed up, I shortened my stride. I stuttered into the ninth hurdle. This is like Doha. Don’t let this moment slip away. I took the final hurdle with my nondominant leg. Cleared it. I dug deeper than I ever had before and crossed the finish line first. Another world record: 51.46.
As Proverbs 16:3 says, when you offer everything you do to the Lord, he will bring it to fruition. In his way and in his time.
Lesson 5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)
At the beginning of April 2022, I noticed a strange tightness in my hamstring. The diagnosis was sciatic nerve entrapment. We tried everything: massage, wraps, dry needling, shock wave therapy. Nothing worked. My only option was to rest.
Just as track season was ramping up, I had to ramp down. Maybe I wouldn’t race again in 2022. God used this time of uncertainty to teach me about trust. Sometimes when there are a lot of unknowns and there’s nothing you can do to fix a problem, you need to be patient and wait on the Lord. I learned to take it a day at a time. After about a month, the tightness went away.
The 2022 World Championships were the most pressure I’d ever felt in my career. I was the favorite. I had the most to lose. But I wasn’t afraid. I ran aggressively, attacking each hurdle, not holding anything back. My legs almost buckled when I landed after the final hurdle. I won with a new world record of 50.68. “Thank you, God,” I said. It was all I had the strength to say. And all I needed to say.
God had delivered me from fear, replacing it with faith. Faith that if I used the gift he’d given me to the best of my ability, win or lose, I would glorify him. In racing and in life, God gives you exactly what you need to run the race he has for you.
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