A ski run changed my view of God
"Let's have some fun!"
I started skiing at five.
I very clearly remember being lifted out of bed while it was still dark, being dressed like a rag-doll while half asleep, then waking up on the mountain, already bundled into my ski outfit. I don’t remember much about the skiing, except that I cried at first and, at some point, decided it was fun.
About a year later, I broke my leg while skiing, and that I remember quite well.
When you’re a kid, you’re basically in a trance, punctuated by either extremely positive or extremely negative experiences. My memory of The Break of 1997 was like a dream that slowly turned into a nightmare. The delayed shock as I hit slush and fell over my boot. The agony when I tried to crawl back uphill, to my mom. By far, though, the confusion was what I remember best:
What—what just happened? Why did it happen? Where did I go wrong? WHAT AM I DOING OUT HERE?
My mother says that the next couple years weren’t great for skiing in California and I had started focusing on ballet by age eight, so there was no opportunity to get me “back on the horse.” Yeah, I am also willing to bet that trying to get me back on that horse would have been the hill [or mountain] we both died on.
After all, it had taken four adults and a literal straight jacket to get x-rays of my teeth when I was three years old. Imagine me at eight, after breaking my leg.
Never mind that it was a hairline fracture. I would have burned down the state.
Anyways, long story short, I didn’t really try skiing again until I was in my mid-twenties and it’s a bona fide miracle that I didn’t break my leg, or something else, again. According to my mom, it was amusing but also frightening to watch me fly down slopes, much taller and heavier than my younger self, with almost no handle on how to stop. My jacket couldn’t catch the wind enough to slow me down. There wasn’t much [read: anything] she could do to help. It was just me, my wits and the mountain.
There was the time where I hit ice in the shade of some trees, lost my balance, my poles, my skis and my pride within full view of the lift chairs. Surrendered to my fate, I slid several hundred feet down the mountain like a helpless starfish, with enough apparent velocity to reach the parking lot. All I heard was a sympathetic, teenage chorus of “oh shit” from above and my mom’s barely restrained laughter from behind. Everything except my ego was perfectly fine and, even as the lift chairs and clouds passed serenely over head, I knew the whole thing was hilarious.
Side note: I maintain to this day that taking that first fall early is the best way to have a great ski day. The longer you build up the dread, the worse it is. The sooner you remember it won’t kill you, you can have fun!
ANYWAY, we’ve gone skiing almost every season for the past six or so years, and my skill set has deepened. Snow sports are tragically so very expensive, but I get out there every chance that I can afford. It’s one reason that I work and my growth in the sport is one of my prides as an adult. I now take black and double-black slopes with entries that would have had me inch-worming down on my butt just five years ago. It’s hard to describe the sense of accomplishment after a really good run, when you look up and can see your own sweeping lines.
I did that. I DID that!
It didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t doing it alone until this past season.
It happened at the top of a double-black run at Mammoth in January 2025. I was completely alone, the air around me crisp and quiet. It had already been a beautiful day of skiing. The left side of the run was shaded but not icy, the wind was holding steady, and the snow was a perfect, gritty dusting [I like that, don’t come at me]. There was a deep snow bank at the foot of the slope, but I was ready for it. The searing beauty of the natural world washed over me—the jewel blue of the sky dome, milky croissant-clouds, wheeling black birds, and sheer enormity of the mountain range itself. Everything was perfect. Perfect.
I checked my bindings once more, unfolded, and was about to push off when, as clearly as if it had been aloud, Someone said:
“Let’s have some fun!”
I froze, instantly aware that the presence of God was beside me on that drop-off. It was so viscerally real that I actually looked over to my right, half expecting a mid-thirties man in white robes to be standing there. The wind pressed at my back, urging me forward, and I dropped into that run without a shred of fear. Just the holy tailwinds of joy and confidence. Halfway down, carving through the snow became an act of art and worship, and I was ugly-crying by the time I reached the bottom. With my own muffled sobs inside my helmet and the warm embrace of God around me, I saw that He had been there on every run that day, watching as I planned each route with the mind He gave, took each line with a body He made, on a mountain He had pulled towards the sky over eons.
As insane as it is that Someone Like That would step into time to chat with me, I realized then that God is always whispering that to us, with every chance at adventure in our lives. With the businesses we aren’t sure how to start, with the friendship that could be a life-long partnership, with the book in your soul that needs to get on paper, with the unexpected N-th child, with the job change, with the song, even with massive disappointments, He says, “Let’s have some fun!”
He wants you to have adventures. He made you to have adventures. And He hopes to be a part of every single one. Nothing brings Him greater joy than being folded into every moment of your life. Let me assure you. He made this gloriously clear to me on that chilly, mountain slope, and it changed my view of Him forever.
I hope it changes something for you, too.
With love,
AIAL