I was very good at it and had hopes of going to the Olympics. They were to be held in Salt Lake City in 2002 just one year after I would graduate high school. School always came first in my family, even if I did not like it and was not to good at it. So it took a little persuasion to convince my dad that taking the year off from going to college to be a professional snowboarder was a good idea. Having it in mind that if I did not do well that season I would be heading back to school, I gave it all I had. And went on to win every major snowboard competition that season, from the X-Games, to the US Open and even the Olympics. I reached every goal and every terms of success I had ever dreamt up.
There is the setting- I had everything.
What else does this world tell you to do? I was 18, famous, rich and had the highest esteemed sports medal out there.
What more did I need ?
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Well I did not know what I needed. I was not happy even with all these things. And I could not figure it out. Not to say that all these things were not amazing, they were, but they were not what I was looking for. I went about snowboarding for the next few years, just kind of going through the motions. It was still going great from the outside perspective. Still winning and "being successful". But inside it seemed to get worse and worse. I did not know what I was doing with my life, did not know what was next, besides what my competition schedule said. I had started partying a ton to try and prove myself cool, or something. It got to a point where I was not to concerned if I was cool or not but I knew that I needed it to run from things. I was drinking by myself to pass the time and drown out the rest of the world.
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Now it is the beginning of the 03' 04" season. I am in my hotel room writing about how my life makes no sense, how I did not want to live and wondered if it would matter to any one if I did wake up the next day.
That afternoon I had pipe qualifiers and I went out and qualified 2nd. Then I waited at the bottom of the pipe for the competition to finish so I did not have to go home to be alone.
A girl came down and she was crying because she had fallen both runs and failed to qualify for finals. Her friend came up to her and said,
"Its all right God still loves you".
My heart jumped like nothing I had ever felt before. If I had heard right, there was a God who loves. I needed to know if this God was for real and if he were, would he love me. I had heard Jesus loves you before, but it never meant anything to me. God had to get me to a place where I could see him.
So I went back to my hotel room knowing that there is usually a Bible in the nightstand of all hotel rooms and started reading. I soon got overwhelmed, not knowing where to start or where it talked about God loving me.
This girl was staying in the same hotel that I was so I went and found out her room number. I then went to her room and knocked. Not quite knowing what to say I introduced myself and told her I thought she was a Christian and asked her if she would tell me about God.
Kind of surprised she said yes and invited me in. I started asking her about God and about the Bible. And she started to share with me. She cleared up my misconceptions about what being a Christian was. I had thought it was about going to church, and rules and being good all the time. She told me it was about relationship and not religion.
I heard about how much God loved me. How he sent his son to die for us that we might live. And that God created me for a purpose and that he had a good plan for my life.
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I spent the next 4 nights keeping her up till all hours asking her questions and telling her where I was. Then God came and met me right where I was. I got scared. I knew there was something to this God thing, but I was worried of what people thought. I was this big time pro snowboarder and what would my friends or family say if I said I wanted to know God. Or even more so told them that I wanted to become a Christian.
Snowboarding was who I was, it was the only way any one knew me, and the only way I knew myself. What would happen if that changed? A lot had just happened and I needed some time to go over it before I made any kind of decision.
I went home from there for Christmas and continued with my competition schedule. I kept in touch with my friend and she would help me out with questions that would come up. God also put some other strong Christians in my life at the time to help me know him.
My conditioning coach at the time was one of them. I had told him what had been going on in my life and he went on to tell me about having a relationship with Jesus and he told me how much God loved me. And a few weeks later he got me the "Purpose Driven Life", a book written by Rick Warren. It was so rad. It answered so many of my questions that started coming up. And through it God started revealing him self more to me, as it is scripture based.
My season kept going and at the last contest my coach gave me a daily devotional bible. It was so cool to be able to read testimonies of people who were living their life for God.
I could read this and then see how the scriptures related to them. I started to see the scripture relating to my life. All this had happened over 5 months. I had still not made a commitment to God. In April when my season had finished that same friend who had originally shared God with me was asking me about giving my life to Jesus. I said I had not and I did not really know what it meant. She explained that it was a prayer that consisted of: claiming Jesus as Lord, confessing that you are in sin, and asking for forgiveness and for Jesus to come and help you.
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She had to go somewhere and there I was left thinking about God. I thought about if I could ever wake up another day and not think about God at least once that day. The answer was no. I realized that God was at work in my life and was already a huge part of it even though I had not accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. So knowing that. I prayed right then and there by myself and welcomed Jesus into my life.
God apprehended me at that moment. You hear about people accepting Jesus and it being a freeing crazy experience. And it was all those things for me. But when I surrendered to him and said I can't do it by myself it was like he cracked a door in my life.
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I had been in the dark forever and it was like being in a dark room and then the door gets cracked and light comes in.
Your eyes start to adjust, and you can make out some of the things in the room.
And God kept opening the door to my life so more and more of his light could shine in.
He started showing me things that had been in my way forever and started removing those things so that I could move forward.
If he had opened the door too quickly it would have hurt my eyes. But he met me right where I was at and knew what I needed.
I needed him the whole time.
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I felt like God switched on my heart. I never knew it worked. I know that sounds crazy but my heart was so hard, I was so far from allowing myself to be loved by any one. It says in the word
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"Cast away from all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit." Ezekiel-18:31.
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And again it says it. " I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in with in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh", Ezekiel-36:26.
I feel that God quite literally did that to me. I felt like I was alive for the first time.
So that's my story. I had everything but nothing at the same time.
Through all of that I never found happiness,
purpose or love like I have found in Jesus.
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