Physical ability has always come naturally for Kelsey Sullivan.
She was walking at seven months old, and her athletic capacity grew as she did. Sullivan set a school record in her track and field debut as a high schooler. The trophies began to stack.
More top finishes, state championships, and a full athletic scholarship to Northeastern University in Boston, where she once again set school records.
“Athletics was always where I thrived, and maybe where I even found a sense of security and value because I could impress people with how athletic I was,” Sullivan said.
“Athletics was a thing that I hinged my worth on for a long time.”
Hear how God used injury, a life-threatening car accident, and more to show Kelsey Sullivan his goodness - in our full conversation:
A new identity
Sullivan’s sophomore year of college, steeped in athletic pursuit and learning to make sense of the world, a painting of Jesus on her grandparents’ bedroom wall froze her in place.
The question of Christianity’s legitimacy latched onto her mind. That weekend, a Sunday sermon was a pointed answer to the quandary. Weeping, she surrendered to the answer Himself.
Her conversion immediately spun further questions about her identity, where her worth and value were created, and what to do about it.
“I worshipped track and field, because it had delivered me from my past. I was in college on a full ride. It was my savior, I thought. So, I would measure my worth based on my performances. Because my eyes were fixed on results, the fruit of my life was pride, selfishness. I was not a fun person to be around,” Sullivan said.
“Christ stopped me in my tracks.”
Division I opportunity came calling for Sullivan soon after, transferring to Wisconsin ahead of her junior year. There, her newly found identity would be tested in earnest.
Upon landing at her new Midwest home, a torn ankle promptly sidelined the New England native for two years.
As Sullivan tells it, her Savior used the injury as a tool to expel old desires from her heart and replace them with a new one.
“Christ did the work that I needed in my heart where track no longer was like the God that I worshiped,” Sullivan said.
“It was now an arena for me to live out my faith and to show up as the person that God made me to be and love the people that he had given me access to that I wouldn’t have had access to had I not had the gifts and talents that he gave me.”
A new race
Sullivan would eventually take the track for Wisconsin, enjoying a full final year of competition with an extra year of eligibility.
Graduation sent her off to the unknown again, where a winding road led her through stops in campus ministry, high school coaching, and then as a college coach back in New England.
It was there that her journey skidded off the paved road, so to speak.
In March of 2023, a blizzard-condition mountain drive for a spontaneous day of skiing turned into a 10-day coma, and a grueling climb to recovery.
“If we’re thinking about God’s sovereignty in this, he put me in a place where my gifts and talents were offline. Movement was not a part of what I was able to do,” Sullivan explained.
“It was challenging to the point that they wouldn’t let me get out of the bed unless I had a balance belt on with someone walking behind me so I didn’t fall down. I had to have someone wash my hair. It was very humbling – God just putting me in this place of utter dependence.”
Cracked ribs, a brain bleed, and a long list of other injuries held Sullivan in complete reliance on those around her. When she was released from the hospital, it was to her mother’s house for another elongated step in her rehabilitation. Another place for helpless reliance to take root.
“I think as I continued on, I actually really started to cherish Jehovah-Jireh’s providing hand for me,” Sullivan said.
“I couldn’t help myself. I had to rely on the people around me and depend on them. And it’s interesting because in the Scripture, when God created the world, he created us for dependency on everything that he created before us in himself. This whole accident humbled me. I couldn’t get up without asking for help and becoming like a little child.”
A new joy
With childlike faith demanded of her, Sullivan learned what only suffering can teach.
She came to know God’s kindness through his provision when she was helpless, such as a couple at church taking her into their home while she recovered further.
She learned of the joy only accessible in the valley of the shadow of death by being placed there.
And she learned that the value placed on her by the love of the King of Kings eternally surpasses anything available in the world alone.
“The way that God was working in my life, sometimes I’d be like, ‘Am I still in a coma?’ It just felt so surreal and every need that I had was provided for. Every need that I didn’t even know I had, God was meeting and healing,” Sullivan said.
“For so long in my life, I relied on the things that made me impressive. And God in his kindness slayed me with mercy so that I didn’t have those things anymore. The thing that made me impressive is that I was his child and that I had a place in his house.”
Sullivan has since returned to both ministry and athletics, serving Boston-area college athletes with Athletes in Action. Her health has been restored, allowing her to often compete alongside those she ministers to.
The experience has given her a tool that could only be forged by harsh grace, enabling her to hold out proof to her students that God is indeed good, and that suffering is not intended to be an end, but a beginning.
“Suffering is an invitation to intimacy with God and knowing him in a way that’s not just platitudes,” Sullivan said.
“The Lord has given me great joy, and I love to be able to bring that to the students’ lives and be able to affirm who they are as people created in God’s image as they’re reshaped and repainted into the person that God wants them to be.”
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