When We Fall Short: God's Love Remains
One of the gifts I received last Christmas was the autobiography of Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the British Heptathlete and I finally found time to read it whilst on holiday over the last couple of weeks.
Her story is one of incredible achievement, winning two World Championship Gold Medals, two Commonwealth Golds and an Olympic Silver Medal, but those successes are counter-balanced by the immense challenges she experienced on that journey, with serious injuries and even very public failure whilst competing at the highest levels of international sport.
I was captivated by Katarina’s raw honesty about her life as a heptathlete. Whilst describing those amazing occasions that led her to the very top of the winner’s rostrum, her autobiography doesn't shy away from her crushing disappointments.
Three consecutive no-jumps in the long jump at the 2015 World Championships that destroyed her medal hopes, devastating injuries at crucial moments which nearly ruined her entire career as an athlete, and the weight of a nation's expectations following in the footsteps of British legends like Denise Lewis and Jessica Ennis-Hill.
What struck me most wasn't just her athletic prowess or her determination, but her vulnerability in describing how these setbacks affected her mental health and sense of worth. Here was someone at the pinnacle of human physical achievement yet feeling the profound pain of public failure and personal struggle as a young woman in her early 20s.
Katarina's story resonates because we all know what it feels like to fall short—perhaps not on the world stage, but in ways that feel just as significant to us. The job interview that went badly, the relationship we couldn't salvage, the moment when our best efforts simply weren't enough. Like Katarina facing those three failed jumps in a World Championship setting with the eyes of the world upon her, we sometimes experience our most public and painful failures precisely when the stakes feel highest.
Yet what makes Katarina's story ultimately triumphant isn't just her World Championship golds in 2019 & 2023 or her Olympic silver in Paris last year. It's her persistence through the valleys, her willingness and desire to continue despite the setbacks, and her gradual understanding that her worth as a human being transcended her performance as an athlete on any given day.
This mirrors something profound about our relationship with God. The apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8:38-39 that nothing "will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Not failure, not embarrassment, not our worst moments, not even our own disappointment in ourselves.
God's love doesn't fluctuate with our performance metrics. When we experience our own "three no-jumps"—those moments when everything goes horribly wrong and we feel we've let everyone down—God's care for us remains constant. His love isn't contingent on our success or diminished by our failures.
Katarina had to learn that her identity extended beyond her athletic achievements. Similarly, we must remember that our worth in God's eyes isn't dependent on our accomplishments or undermined by our shortcomings. His love reaches into our deepest disappointments and most embarrassing failures with the same tenderness He shows in our moments of triumph.
Like any great athlete, our faith journey involves both victories and defeats, successes and failures. But unlike human competitions where only the winner gets the gold, in God's economy, His love is the medal we've already won—not through our performance, but through His grace.
When life throws us curveballs and we find ourselves flat on our faces, we can remember: God's love doesn't waver, doesn't judge, and never gives up on us.
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:38-39
Ken Carter