Paralympian Jessica Long says God is using her swimming to reach others.,,,
After winning an incredible 16 Paralympic Golds, swimmer Jessica Long summed up her feelings on social media in three words: “Thank you Jesus!”
But the road to her success has been far from smooth.
Born in Russia to teenage parents, Long was abandoned to a Siberian orphanage before being adopted by an American couple from Baltimore when she was 13 months old. A rare condition called fibular hemimelia resulted in Long’s lower legs being amputated before she was two.
Long never allowed her disability to hold her back in sports, eventually making her first appearance on the international stage at the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens when she was 12. While there, she captured an astonishing three gold medals in freestyle events.
Speaking to Sports Spectrum, Long told how she came to faith in Jesus.
“It didn’t happen overnight; it was three years of showing up to my Bible study, to church, having a community of believers, and I fought God on everything,” she said.
“But there was this moment in June of 2013 when I just felt I didn’t want to question if I was a believer or not. The big thing that I kept saying was, ‘I wanted to give God my whole heart and not just part of me.’”
Eight years later, Long is grateful for the unique position God has placed her in to use her swimming talent to glorify him.
“As a little girl, it’s hard to comprehend that God’s going to use you in this big way and that swimming’s eventually going to be this platform to reach other people,” she said. “I definitely think that’s been one of the coolest things – reaching other people through my story, my testimony.”
One of the greatest Paralympians ever, Long ended the Tokyo Games with a tally of 29 Paralympic medals, and ranks number eight on the all-time medallist list.
