Susan Humphreys

Life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan. Sometimes, it turns out even better.

    Just ask Susan Humphreys. She had a plan: with hard work and determination, she was going to become a champion figure skater.

    When Humphreys burst on the Canadian skating scene in 1993 at age 17, it looked like her dream of success was in sight. She finished third at the Canadian Figure Skating Championships and ninth at the World Championships.

    In 1994 she represented Canada at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. She was poised for greatness — Canada’s rising star in a traditionally weak ladies field.

    Life may have appeared picture perfect on the outside, but inside Humphreys was struggling.

    “I kept thinking beforehand that if I got all my goals then I’d be happy, then I’d be content,” says Humphreys. “But when I got there I realized there was still something missing, there was something wrong. I wasn’t a perfect picture.”

    In the 1994-95 season, success started slipping away. The plan was going awry. Humphreys battled a back injury while also fighting an eating disorder — a prevalent problem in figure skating.

    Just when life couldn’t derail much further from her plan, she was presented with an new and better one.

    Humphreys was invited to listen to motivational speaker and former U.S. decathalon champion, Mark Andersen. He shared with the crowd of 500 that God loved them and wanted to have a relationship with them. It was a message that cut right to Humphrey's heart.

    “As a child I always believed in God but He wasn’t part of my life on a daily basis,” she says. “I just thought that everyone believes in God, don’t they?”

    That night, Humphreys turned her life over to Jesus.

    “I didn’t go looking, God came and found me,” she says.

    While Humphreys’ dreams of being a Canadian Champion and struggles with injuries didn’t change, her perspective did.

    “It doesn’t mean that my life is perfect or that I’ve never experienced heartache or pain since,” she says. “It changed my directed focus off the results onto why I was doing it. I just had to trust God for what He had in the sport for me.”

    In 1995, Humphreys was physically worn out but continued to skate. Some suggested early retirement but the young skater fought on.

    “God had given me the peace that I would someday become a Canadian Champion,” she says. “I had to trust. I had to experience things that were unpleasant but He kept giving me the push and the drive to keep going.”

    In 1997, hard work and trusting God paid off. Humphreys did become Canadian Champion. “It was His,” says Humphreys about winning. “I want to thank God and praise Him for giving me that opportunity.”

    Last year Humphreys hung up her skates and retired from competitive skating, feeling that God had something new in store for her.

    Slowly, doors started to open. She was accepted into the University of Alberta Phys. Ed. program and has found a niche with the Christian campus group, Athletes in Action.

    For Humphreys it’s assurance that God is in control of her life.

    “When you are going through something, at the base of it you have that 100 per cent assurance that He has a plan for you,” she says.

    For now Humphreys hopes to finish school and continue her work with Athletes in Action. The rest she trusts God will reveal when the time is right.

    “The living God lives through all of us,” says Humphreys. “I can’t prove the Bible truth to someone, but I can prove that He lives in my life in a real way.”

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