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Jud Heald stood up and shook the snow off his clothes. He felt a little sore, but figured it was normal after crashing like that on a snowboard trick. He'd just fallen 16 feet, landing directly on his head. But even as the pain became more intense, all he could think about was getting in a few more runs. So he headed back toward the lift line.

After returning home, the pain had become unbearable. His doctor's diagnosis shocked him: The fall had broken his neck. He needed surgery and would have to wear a halo—a huge head brace that would be bolted on to his skull—until the fracture healed.

But Jud, who was 18 at the time, had only one concern: Could he skateboard again? He'd been skateboarding since kindergarten, and by junior high, he had just one dream: to go pro.

"All of a sudden, this doctor's telling me I might never be able to skateboard again," Jud remembers. "It just devastated me. It was my last year of high school, and I was planning to go to California to become a professional skateboarder. Skateboarding was the one thing I wanted to do, the one thing I was shooting for. I cried the whole way home."

Overwhelmed with depression, Jud longed for something that would replace the feeling skateboarding gave him. He started going to parties, using drugs and alcohol. But there was something deeper—beyond missing skateboarding—that was really bothering him.

"I realized I was not in control of my life, and I needed to get right with God," Jud says.

He'd attended church all his life, but had never given control of his life to God. So he started to pray. He stopped partying and started reading his Bible intensely. The more he read, the more he wanted to know everything about God's Word.

Over the next year, Jud's neck healed perfectly. But even though he had his old skateboarding life back, Jud knew he had to make some huge changes in his spiritual life.

"One night, I remember specifically praying, 'I just want to use my abilities for you, Lord. I want you to take this and glorify your name with it,'" Jud says. "I was crying out to God, 'Where do you want me?'"

In his prayer, Jud told God that he wanted to follow him—even if it meant giving up skateboarding. Two days later, he received an invitation to work as a ramp builder at Woodward skate camp in Pennsylvania, a favorite training facility of many of the world's top-ranked skateboarders. It was an amazing answer to prayer, especially since Jud had sent in his application the year before—just after his accident.

"God was preparing a path for me," Jud says. "I couldn't have gone to Woodward when I applied. God already knew what was going to happen in my life when I filled out the application. He knew there was going to be a point when I turned my life around."

At Woodward, Jud was given the opportunity to participate in an ESPN competition. Though it was unheard of for an amateur to skate in a pro competition, the camp owners talked ESPN into letting Jud participate. In that competition, top pro skateboarders Tony Hawk and Andy Macdonald placed first and second, respectively. And Jud, who had never competed before, placed sixth. He accepted his prize money, which immediately designated him as a pro.

Soon after, a Christian company called Manna Skateboards offered to sponsor him.

These days, Jud, now 26, travels with the Manna team most of the year, doing demos and sharing his testimony across the country. Being involved with a full-time ministry means Jud sometimes has to turn down invitations to compete. But he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I'm so psyched to talk about Jesus—he's the best thing that's happened to me," Jud says. "Skateboarding is going to come and go, but God is not."

Read more from 'Interesting People'

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