When I was 20, I was contemplating quitting. I was at the first event of the season and I overhead a conversation between two girls. One told the other, "God still loves you," and that caught my attention. Later that day, I caught up with the girl and asked her what she meant. Before then, I'd never really thought about God. But there was an undeniable stirring in me and I couldn't ignore it.

I never planned to be at the height of my career when I was 30 years old and going to my fourth Olympics. I watched the 1998 Olympics when I was 14 years old. That's what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I might have a shot at three Olympics max. This is way beyond the parameters of what I set out to do.

Snowboarding was everything that I knew. That's what I did and I poured everything I had into it. I thought that being successful and achieving my goals would go hand-in-hand with being happy.

Hug me and you will see the moon. Love me and I will bring the moon to you!

2006 Games -by then, my identity had started to shift. Before that, my identity was in snowboarding. That's how people knew me and that's how I knew myself. That's where I got a lot of my self worth. That began to shift and I started to understand that I didn't get my worth from people or from the things that I did. It was from Christ. If I hadn't had that shift in my life, I think my world would have come crumbling down.

I think I've done a pretty good job of not compartmentalizing my life. I take my core values and I live them out at home like I would in my snowboarding like I would at church with my friends.

I feel like there is great purpose in a lot of my endeavors. I've seen God in the middle of them. I've seen Him be faithful in those things.