Olympic snowboarder Kelly Clark has a message on the top of her board: “Jesus, I cannot hide my love.” A journey to find herself ultimately led her to know Christ. Now she wants to lead others to Him.

Now What?

Clark won the first gold medal for the U.S. in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Her excitement didn’t last long. She found herself wondering, “Now what?”

“In all those external successes, I was really looking for that sense of significance,” said Clark in an interview with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). “I think our greatest need as humans is to be significant, and we’ll look for that everywhere. That’s just what I did with my snowboarding.” But it wasn’t enough.

Clark’s friend Natalie McLeod, a Christian, began praying for her. From their conversations, the former snowboarder believed Clark had never been to church. She wrote her friend’s name in her journal that day and prayed: “Jesus, I just ask that you would save this person.”

McLeod could see Clark’s struggle. She was depressed. She didn’t think she had a purpose in life. Still, she qualified for the finals in the 2003-04 season. She observed an exchange between a woman who didn’t qualify and a friend. The friend consoled the heartbroken woman. “Hey, it’s all right,” she said. “God still loves you. You don’t need to cry.”

Do I Qualify?

“All I could think about was ‘What if this God loved me? And do I qualify for that?’” Clark asked.

That exchange stayed with her and that night she began reading the Bible in her hotel room. She felt, “I don’t even know how to read this,’” she said.

The woman who had comforted the snowboarder just happened to be staying in Clark’s hotel. She knocked on her door. “I think you might be a Christian,” she said, “and I think you need to tell me about God.” She knew she’d knocked on the right door.

Clark thought that Christianity was about rules and being good all the time. “She just told me it was about relationship, not about religion. And she just told me Jesus loved me. It was just what I needed to hear.”

“I think what captured me was that God loved me. I didn’t have to do anything. I didn’t have to be someone. … There’s a love that’s bigger than all that.”

Finding Her Purpose

In May, 2004, Clark became a Christian. It wasn’t until a few months later that McLeod showed Clark her journal entry from the year before. Clark told McLeod “Thank you for praying.”

“Everything with Kelly is an adventure,” said McLeod. “On one side, you have the athletic adventure. On the other side, you have the identity adventure. She is just not afraid at all to go ‘full-on.’ She’s so brave, not only in the halfpipe, but even with figuring out who she is as a person, who she is in God, everything. She just goes for it.”

Clark’s coach, Rick Bower, said that he could see the change in her. “[Her faith] helped her focus,” he said. “It gave her some perspective that was beyond just herself. She found a purpose in life.”

Others could see the transformation, too. “They knew how much I partied, what kind of lifestyle I had, and how emotionally volatile I was,” Clark said. “After time, by watching me, they were able to come to the conclusion that, ‘Wow, this is a really, really great thing for Kelly.’”

Leading Others to Christ

Now Clark wants to lead others to Christ. “My ministry, and what God is doing in my life, is really found in my career in the marketplace,” she said. “I’m in an industry where it’s very foreign and it’s very counter-cultural. I get to love these people really well who would never step foot in a church.”

“I think knowing that you were created for a purpose and knowing that you’re loved,” said Clark, “I don’t think you can get any better than that.”

Clark has had 70 career wins, three Olympic medals, seven X Games gold medals and five World Snowboard Tour titles, reported FCA. She competed Monday at PyeongChang in the halfpipe event and took fourth place.