I’ve gotten myself into a lot of trouble with two unassuming words I use all the time: I’ll never. I never intended to do a lot of things. I never intended to go to UGA. I never intended to fall in love with Jesus. I never intended to even major in what I studied in school. In fact, I said no to all of these things that have ultimately shaped me into the person I am right now. But I’ve since learned to never say never.

I had a tendency to not only shut the door, but also to lock it and then attempt to lose the key.I grew up with a very set, rigid idea of what my life would look like. To stray from the course would risk disaster, and I decided at a very young age that I could not afford any upset. I would have bought insurance for my future if I could have.

My old plan actually makes me laugh out loud now because I have no idea where I conjured it up actually, probably from a “best college rankings” list and whatever was cool in the New York Times in 2006.

My parents gave me a lot of freedom growing up to explore who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do, so I threw myself into studying and saying “no” to all of the things that would lead me astray from a path of academia and sweater vest wearing.

I was stubborn and, although I wanted to be “open” to new ideas and culture, I was afraid of the filth in the world because I could see it.

I could see it in the way that poverty littered the outskirts of my county and I could see it even in the way my parents would fight, so I burrowed into a little hole of Tolstoy and Austen afraid of the grime all around me.

In that little den of literature and math homework, I gritted my teeth and hoped and wished for security. I strained and I strained, and although my GPA throughout high school was pretty stellar, I felt alone and isolated and as if the weight of the world sat on my shoulders.

I made plans to attend Emory University in the fall of 2011. My parents even bought “Emory Mom and Dad” bumper stickers for their cars. I had always said, “I’ll never go to UGA.”

Me on the far right after me high school graduation

But May of my senior year rolled around and I had a very weird change of heart that led me to consider a visit to UGA that then led me to sending in that college deposit to Athens rather than to Atlanta.

That same summer, I told my cousin I would go to the beach with her on a mission trip, an act that prompted my friend to ask me, “Lauren, don’t only religious people go on mission trips?”

People were very shaken up about my change in plans. I, of course, was oblivious to all of these openings of opportunities and closing of my “no’s.” I quickly learned to never say never.

I went on that mission trip during the week of the 4th of July. I helped paint a brick house and patched a roof. I ate too many Swedish Fish candies on the floor with my cousin and her friends and sang Katy Perry in the bunk rooms before we went to bed.

At night, we worshiped on the beach, and I became fearful of looking like I didn’t know the songs (because truthfully I didn’t). I committed to learning the melodies because I was shocked that a group of kids my age could really care for Jesus in the way that they did.

I don’t know what my moral code really was. I did know that I had done some terrible things in life, and so the concept of grace that this “guy Jesus” offered (I was still a little skeptical) was attractive to me. So, when I got home from the trip in July, I started reading the new study bible my cousin had given me before the trip.

I would go into my room and lock the door, afraid that someone would find me googling King David or something. I started journaling which was mainly a bunch of “I love you, Jesus. I love you, Jesus. I love you, Jesus.” and “How Lord? How Lord? How Father, could you love someone like me?”

It was what the other kids were doing, and I didn’t know why really, but I needed desperately to know what they knew. I wanted what they had, that peace and light that I hadn’t known existed before.

I accepted Jesus into my heart and became a new creation. I was full of gratitude and a peace that I knew were not my own doing.

I showed up to UGA in August with big plans. I thought I’d meet 30,000 new friends. I thought I’d end up as the president of the sorority. I thought I’d study abroad for a semester in Australia. If all of my plans would have been fulfilled, I probably would be planning my wedding right now.

What actually happened that August day I arrived with my twin, extra-large sheet set was the opposite: my roommate did not like me at all. Rush was long and hot and I lost my voice by the third day. I was a smiling mime. My hair got stuck in my best friend’s portable fan, which left me with fresh, new “side bangs.” I would get on the bus and cry to my mom because I thought I would never make it around campus in 15 minutes.

I hated it. I had never felt more alone or broken in my entire life. My life up until last August had been shaped by my own control. Here, I felt like I had that control snatched right from my hand.

Me, in the middle

What did I do when my roommate put a curtain up under her bed and refused to talk to me? I turned to Jesus and, though my roommate still didn’t want to talk to me, I discovered a still, small voice that encouraged me, stayed with me, and offered me peace and a new perspective.

I learned to pray, and so I prayed hard, desperate prayers. “God, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I need you. I need something. I need something to change and I want you. I’d give it all for you.”

He gave me a little peace and a heaping portion of faith that felt something like, “you don’t know what I’m doing, but I love you and I am here for you. I have a plan.”

I believed Him and, sure enough, my cards seemed to get shuffled and I got dealt a much more pleasant hand.

I started going to Freshley, the freshman student ministry of the UGA Wesley Foundation, and started walking with the Lord. Seriously. I would walk to class and talk to Him, and in a small group we would talk and pray together. Standing there, crammed into Wesley’s main chapel like a little sardine, I listened to the same songs I had learned on the beach the summer before,

I felt a new beginning and the “I’ll never” that I used to cling to was exchanged for a big “yes” to the unknown, knowing full well that I was following a plan much larger than my own.

I found life at UGA. I found family. I found hope and I found deep, satisfying love that makes the unknown and the filth all beautiful and exciting. Instead of saying “I’ll never,” I’m now saying a big “yes” to whatever door Jesus wants to walk me through. From what I’ve found over the last four years, they are doors that lead to the best, most exciting and fulfilling places.

I believe time is something most of us take for granted. In the literal sense, time is something that we can never get back, yet most people don’t seem to realize that until they lose something of value. I’m not saying be anxious all the time and worry about what you’re doing every second of the day but just ask yourself, are you making the most out of your time today?

Every day at 5 A.M, my alarm goes off. Half asleep, I force myself out of bed into the bathroom to start preparing for the day ahead. What’s my first task of the day? Well, it’s to go and workout and perfect my craft. For those who may be wondering, my craft is football. It’s a sport I fell in love with fairly late in my life, since I only started playing in high school.

Always knew I’d want to play sports professionally when I grew up, but couldn’t decide which sport until I found football.

My story is no different than most athletes, I was just a small town kid with big dreams to play at a big Division 1 school then eventually go to the pros. Funny when I look back, I had my entire life planned out up until I made it to the league. Needless to say, things have not gone according to plan. I’m a junior in college, and at this point of my life I was supposed to have declared early for the draft and be on my way to the NFL. Yet it’s my junior year and I have not even been able to play a single down of college football.

I’ve always felt in life that you could achieve anything you wanted in life as long as you put the work in. No matter what it was, if I worked hard enough, I knew I would be able to achieve any goal. The path to playing college ball has been a tough one for me. I have faced my fair share of obstacles. I had to come to Rutgers University and walk on to the team. I tried out and made the team no problem, but yet was not able to play.

Next semester comes, then my grades stop me from playing.

I get my priorities straight and try out again. Once again I make the team, and I was just a couple days away from getting my jersey until it was discovered I would need surgery on my shoulder because of a previous injury years ago in high school. The obstacles drained me almost completely. I barely even worked out at this point. My surgery was the turning point in my life.

The Stockdale Paradox: a concept introduced in the Jim Collins book Good to Great, explains that you must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

In a study done by the International Committee for the Study of Victimization, they looked at people who had suffered serious adversity. The results of the study showed that people generally fell into three groups. Those who let the adversity keep them down, those who get their lives back to normal, and those who take that adversity and grow stronger.

I’m in that third group.

The brutal facts of my situation? Well the biggest one is time. I have two years remaining to play college football. The surgery sparked something in me, and helped me realize that the journey will be hard, but I’m completely capable of doing it.

I have to work every day, and I have to work harder than everybody else to achieve my goal. Just like the good-to-great companies, I understand the brutal facts, and I will not hesitate to face them.

It seems from the moment I was born, I was thinking about my future calling. I remember back in high school when my idea of a perfect, successful life entailed both my husband and I being renowned doctors and our children going to prestigious schools. But, you know what they say… if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans for tomorrow.

Most people spend a lifetime figuring out who they are, but who I was hit me like a truck my junior year of high school.

My best friend had had a rough weekend that was exacerbated by attending school. It was a rough Monday for me, as well, because I knew she was upset, but I had to sneak my phone and try to talk to her when I could throughout the day. After school, I received a message that read “Promise me, no matter what, you’ll remember you’re a good person.”

That moment started what was to be the worst night of my life. I lived over an hour away with no license, and I couldn’t reach her for 4 hours.

She finally answered the phone, and I thought I was going to fall apart when she told me she attempted suicide a few hours earlier. She repeatedly told me “I hate my life, I want to die.”

But we got through that night, and the next day, and the next until she was okay. Today, she’s a successful Division I athlete who loves life and lives hers to the fullest. That night made me think, “I wonder how many people in the world want to kill themselves.”

I went on Twitter and searched the word suicidal, and I was not expecting the dark world into which I was suddenly thrown. I found Twitter accounts with names such as @CarveAndStarve, @BladesandRegret, and @JustKillMe.

I saw tweet after tweet after tweet of people degrading themselves and stating how much they wanted to die. That’s when I thought to myself, “What could I do to make these people’s lives better?”

And suddenly, @HopeHeals1 was born. My future calling had just begun, and in high school.

I started a twitter account in which I talk to people who are suicidal. My best friend told me she didn’t know what she would have done without me that night, which made me think about how many people just need one person in their corner if for nothing more than to be there for them and tell them it’s going to be okay.

I talk to people who struggle with depression, anxiety, self-harm, gender dysphoria, eating disorders, and other obstacles that have consumed their being. The more and more people I helped, the more I started to feel better myself and more steadfast in who I am. Of all the types of people God could’ve made me to be, He made me a helper.

When I came to this realization about my life, I knew what my earthly purpose was and who He wanted me to be. I used to always ask myself if Heaven was the end goal, what’s the point of life on earth? When I found out what that was, I woke up every day excited to find someone else who needed help.

Sometimes, it got hard to talk to these people, and I wondered if this is what my calling really was. But Galatians 5:13 says, “For you, brothers, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to gratify your flesh, but through love make it your habit to serve one another.”

I’ve realized my purpose in life is to serve others out of love for them, no matter how hard it gets.

Make the world a better place by making one person smile at a time. I know it sounds cliché, but that’s what I was doing. I reached out to one person, and one person turned into two, and two turned into five, five turned into 15 and so on, but I still didn’t feel like I was reaching enough people. I wanted to reach out to more people with a message that says they’re loved and they’re not alone.

I asked my followers to email me their stories if they wanted to use them to help others. I received over 100 stories and used the majority of them in the book I published entitled Hidden in the Shadows.

My book is a compilation of my followers’ stories separated into different hardships such as eating disorders, depression, friends and family who have been affected, etc. and ends with success stories and words of encouragement for people who are going through some of the same things the people in my book are.

The responses I’ve gotten from my book are amazing, and it’s so satisfying to know that the little things I do are helping people become happier.

If you’re still going through your life aimlessly, don’t worry, because God has a plan for you.

If you’re going through a lot right now and just can’t see your destiny, know that God took the worst night of my life and made it shaped it for the better. If you aren’t religious, you have a purpose too. Everything happens for a reason, including your existence.

While I couldn’t see any good in that situation at the time, now I’m grateful that it happened. Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I say all that to say, my calling found me. I wasn’t even looking for it. When I graduate college, I have plans to go to medical school and become a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Everyone deserves happiness, and it starts within.

Talking to people and making them smile has become my passion, and I can’t wait to do it for a living.

I don’t expect sharing my story to inspire you to suddenly overcome your struggles, but if nothing else, I pray you received some hope that your darkest nights can turn into your brightest days.

The calling God had for me turned me into a selfless person who would do anything for anyone and is nice simply because you never know the battle someone else is fighting. When you realize the calling for your life, it will change you for the better. Just be patient, for your purpose is greater than your challenges.

What keeps you going?

In life, we all have something that keeps us going; a passion, a goal, fear of failure, love or hate, or maybe just a dear friend or sibling. The most important to me, through experience, is love for those around me, especially my family and friends.

What do I mean by love? It seems this word can be used in a thousand different ways. To answer this, think about your life. Who do you think is more important to you, a brother or a friend? These days, no one seems to pick up the journal to read of the beauty of the sun. Most newspapers are full articles on killings, theft, terrorism, rape, and porn.

A lot of these happenings occur within our own home, the family.

Boundaries are crossed, anger builds and the family is torn apart. To see the beauty of the sun, to look beyond the newspaper, and feel the love of life, we must have a united family.

It seems the family is becoming an ever less important aspect in the eyes of the world. The world seems to focus on individuals and how one can grow up independently, without the care of parents.

One of the organizations where we can still find the teachings of a family, is within a church.

Most members of church organizations refer to one another as brother and sister. They do this in believing God is our universal Father, thus we become brother and sister at birth.

I find this to be a little ironic. Most churchgoers believe in God, but also in the devil, who like you, is a child of God, making him our brother as well. Knowing he is our brother, would you refer to him as your friend?

One great teaching from Jesus Christ is of the power of a true friendship. In John 15: 12-13 he says, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

The true love that keeps me going is that of my friends. We need to establish our strongest friendships within our family. Love is felt and lived when friendships are formed within the family and then with others.

Life keeps going by love, be a friend. It keeps going.

In Portuguese:

O amor no lar Na vida passamos por dificuldades e as maiores geralmente acontecem no lar. Os relacionamentos dentro de casa são essenciais para nosso bem e trazem amor. Na vida temos irmãos e amigos, mas qual deles é o mais importante para ter em sua vida ou em sua casa? Já se perguntou isso, qual é o mais ideal? Porque dentro de casa ás vezes há briga, conflito, violência e discussão.

No jornal sempre saía artigos muito tristes sobre traições, roubos e assasinatos, mas o fato mais assustador são que essas tragédias estão acontecendo dentro da família. O amor nem sempre existe na família, ás vezes irmãos brigam entre si. Esses acontecimentos tiram a felicidade e o amor do meio familiar. Deus quer que a alegria e a felicidade habitem no lar porque Ele é nosso amoroso pai dos céus. Ele nos concedeu uma família aqui na terra, mas por sermos gerados por Deus nós nos tornamos igualmente sendo todos irmãos e irmãs com Deus sendo nosso pai.

Com esse propósito nas igrejas os membros se referem um ao outro com o título de irmão ou irmã. Sendo assim até Satanás seria nosso irmão e na verdade ele é nosso irmão. Ele como você, é um filho gerado por Deus, todavia por causa de suas escolhas, habita no inferno, num lugar de infelicidade. Agora sabendo que ele é nosso irmão você o chamaria de seu amigo? Todos nós nascemos irmãos e não amigos. Nós precisamos merecer a amizade entre nossos irmãos. Jesus Cristo disse em João 15: “Ninguém tem maior amor do que este: de dar alguém a sua vida pelos seus amigos.” O amor pode ser alcançado quando nós nos tornarmos amigos de nossos irmãos e assim o amor estará presente no lar.

In 49 B.C., during a time of political unrest, the Roman senate ordered Julius Caesar to disband his army. Ignoring this order, he led his army across the Rubicon River in an act of treason. This was called, “The point of no return” because this tiny river represented a boundary that by law prevented generals from leading their troops into Rome. The march across the Rubicon preceded Caesar’s rise to power. The story I’m about to tell does not involve a rise to power, but I can identify with the point of no return.

I grew up in a home where my parents taught us Christian values, and we were always in church. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know about God. My point of no return came when God put me in a position where I had to decide if I believed with absolute certainty the truths that I had repeated for those early years of my life.

I want to take you back to a morning almost seven and a half years ago. I was a bitter sixteen-year-old that hid behind a quiet personality. It was a sunny, November afternoon as I slid into the back of my dad’s car.

My parents were taking my grumpy self to yet another doctor. This time they had to fight a little harder to make it happen. The pastor of our church had called me into the middle of my parents’ counseling session and asked me if I would be willing to see a spine doctor. My brother and sister were both away at college so I figured that my parents must be looking for a kid to distract them from their own problems.

My spine had had an abnormal “s” shaped curvature called scoliosis since I was eight years old. The curve had increased rapidly during my teen years. My rib cage had shifted out of place. Despite my best fashion efforts, my torso was noticeably asymmetrical. I figured this appointment would involve another doctor discussing my “deformity” and trying to convince me to wear a brace.

The whole thing seemed weird and unnecessary but not wanting to seem “unspiritual,” there we were on our way to the doctor again.

Fast forward, about two hours later. The normal x-rays are done. I’d been through this so many times I could almost tell the technician the steps. My parents and I are sitting in a cold, white room waiting. In walks the doctor wearing his white coat.

He perches on his spinning chair, slaps the x-rays up on the lighted board, and the fancy talk begins. He’s bringing the questions and I’m bringing the attitude. I am doing my best to let him know I hate him without saying the words that will get me in trouble. This involves avoiding eye contact, exasperated sighs, and the occasional glare.

The doctor asked, “Do you like water or swimming?”

I slowly raise my head, looked him in the eyes and say, “I hate water.”

The doctor did not hesitate, “Well great. Here’s a pamphlet for water therapy you should sign up for.”

So that clenched it, me and the doc wouldn’t be friends. He’s talking curve progression and I’m daydreaming about how to celebrate my birthday in two weeks. I had almost made up my guest list when I tuned back in.

The doctor spoke, “So yeah, we definitely need to operate.”

I was silently expecting my parents to cut in and let him know that wasn’t in our plans. Instead, questions started flying and they just started making crazy notes.

My dad asked, “What time frame are we looking at?”

The doctor responded, “Really, as soon as possible. Needs to be in the next year at least. Since this case is so advanced, I’m going to recommend you to a specialist surgeon.”

The situation seemed to be getting out of hand. Someone really needed to shut this down.

I responded with a quick, “I’m not having surgery.”

The doctor looked at me like I was an idiot, “If you don’t have surgery, your spine will crush your heart and lungs. Paralysis will set in and this will kill you.”

I wanted nothing more than for him to take those words back. Crying in front of my parents was rare for me. It never ever happened in front of strangers. There didn’t seem any point in holding back now though. I didn’t even avoid eye contact, just started crying a river. I couldn’t have stopped to speak even if I’d had words.

The doctor just looked at me with an incredible lack of emotion, “I can tell this is upsetting you.”

Inside my head, there was a voice screaming, “Way to go Einstein.”

Between my world spinning and wishing this day did not exist, I was searching for evil ideas on how to make this doctor feel the pain he’d just inflicted. My parents somehow got me home.

This was the beginning of where I began to question everything that I’d been told and began to deal with my bitterness.

Being home schooled allowed me to isolate from my friends and put on a cheery face for those times when I was forced to socialize. I felt like life was just flying by, but I was afraid to enjoy it freely because I imagined it would soon be ripped away. I would spend time praying and crying myself to sleep at all hours of the day. Those were some very dark months.

My parents were struggling in their marriage and the issue of my spine condition was a point of serious contention. My mom and I searched the internet for alternative medicine. Reality began to set in as I realized that even if these mildly sketchy options could work, we were out of time. My relationship with my dad was nonexistent. Though I was very wrong in this belief, I was convinced that this push for surgery was his attempt to legally remove me from his world.

By this point, I was seventeen years old. My priority was to either drag this issue out until I was eighteen and could get away from home or convince my mom to deny medical consent for my surgery.

Even though we were on a long waiting list, the months passed too fast. March brought a visit to the specialist surgeon. We met with him to discuss the details of the surgery that everyone except for me was planning. After taking his own x-rays and an MRI, Dr. Horton (the specialist surgeon) was confident of a few things. He was sure that the surgery needed to happen; it would have to be soon; he needed to be the one to operate.

My parents asked a lot more specific questions which he answered. My dad was happy because the other surgeons we had spoken to had refused to operate on me due to the severity of the curve.

The only thing I remember saying was, “I don’t want to have spine surgery. Can you operate without my consent?”

Dr. Horton gave me the answer I wanted but it didn’t give me the warm, fuzzy feeling in my soul that I expected. “No, we cannot make you go through with this. However, if you don’t have the surgery, things will not be good. If you’re still alive at forty, you’ll be in a wheel chair. Your lungs and heart will be crushed. You’ve probably lost lung function already. You have to decide what to do.”

I felt like a bowling ball of responsibility had been dropped in my arms.

My questions to Dr. Horton were always blunt and he responded in kind. He was open with the risks of spinal fusion which included paralysis, non-fusion, and infection.

Still, I did not trust anyone once I was unconscious. Dr. Horton said, “Our team won’t leave the operating room until every screw is in place.” I believed he meant it though I doubted if he could make that promise.

At the very root of it, I did not trust God.

I thought He had it in for me. Despite the best intentions of doctors, I knew God had more power. I was struggling to give anyone else control of my life. I saw God as this impersonal being who was creatively punishing me. In the midst of this, trust began to creep into my heart.

I held onto one particular promise/command. Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Another obstacle worth mentioning was my fear of needles. Shots and blood tests made me faint, nauseous, anxious, my heart race, and hands clammy since I could remember. I had been through it many times and each time was worse.

I thought I would die. I thought I would pass out. I thought I would throw up. I focused on how much I could feel the needle in my arm. So even if I could trust the doctors on the day of surgery, it would have to be without any needles. Well, the good doctor assured me that there would be lots of needles. In fact, a needle would have to be in me for the duration of my hospital stay so they could do blood tests.

So my surgeon sent me to a psychologist for systematic desensitization. This is a process where you list the reasons for your fear, the possible outcomes when facing your fear, the likelihood of each outcome, and how you would handle each outcome.

Those weeks of meeting with the psychologist in the spring of 2009 changed how I saw the world. It did not become some warm, safe place. In the end, I realized, my eternal future is secure. Do I believe that my life on this earth will always be safe and pleasant? No, I have seen too much of pain and suffering in my own life and lives of those I have encountered to expect that I would be spared from all future pain.

What I believe is that God sent His son, Jesus, who lived, died, and rose to redeem me not simply from bad circumstances but from my own sin.

No one else could do that. In the words of the apostle Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69)

I wavered between moments of peace and moments of fear. One afternoon while my parents were gone, I decided to watch a video of another patient undergoing the same surgery on YouTube. Let me tell you, that was not a great idea. The video was just a little too graphic. I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling incredibly nauseous and weeping on the couch.

In those moments of peace, I knew that God was giving me strength because I knew I had none of my own left to carry me.

I remember meeting with a second psychologist who worked closely with my surgeon to ensure that patients were mentally and emotionally prepared to undergo this type of surgery. He gave me an hour long written psychological test. When we met to go over my results, he was actually concerned because my test results showed a lack of stress over the situation.

He was concerned that I might be in denial. In the end, while I was so very aware of the risks, the results of my surgery didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I began to trust God to direct my life.

I had spinal fusion surgery on June 2nd of 2009. Dr. Horton moved my spine from an eighty-five degree curve to a 20 degree curve and attached two stainless steel rods and about twenty-two screws to my spine.

The recovery was the roughest thing I have encountered in my twenty-four years of living. My scar is fading and the physical evidence that I ever had scoliosis is so very slight. I hope though that I will never forget the truths that I held so close to my heart in those times.

I’ve always wanted to be a difference-maker. I always wanted to be part of something bigger than myself and inspire millions. Four months ago, I found my way and my mission in life. I decided to turn my adversity into something bigger than myself  and be of service. My story began 22 years ago when my life changed forever…

War broke out in 1992. Serbian troops began occupying my hometown of Livno, a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with neighboring Croatia, were at war with Serbia in what was to be called the Patriotic War. I and my mom escaped to Germany to be with her aunt while my father stayed and fought in the war.

One morning, my cousin Marc took me for a walk through his German town. On our walk, Marc was teasing me about seeing the animals, saying he would throw me to the dogs at the zoo. Just after he joked about it, someone passed by us walking their dogs and he jostled me towards them. They were barking at me so loud, I was terrified. I was so intimidated that I couldn’t talk for a moment. Marc just laughed while I stood paralyzed.

The next thing I remember I was hanging from a bridge while he held me with his arms around my waist.

I was crying my eyes out, but it was all just amusing to him. He finally put me down and explained to me that he was joking, but I was beyond terrified by his bullying. I experienced severe stuttering and couldn’t speak fluently afterwards.

This would have been the end of my story if I was a different person. There are people who don’t fight when it gets tough, who accept reality and the limitations imposed by others. But I’m fighter, I always have been, and I wasn’t going to stop there.

Although I suffered so much because of that one man, he helped me to find my way to make a difference and help millions of people. To me, that was God directing my steps.

God gave me that adversity so I could be of service, so I could contribute to society, and alleviate the pain in other people’s lives. I was given stuttering so I could make a difference and make this world a better place.

Two years ago I started expressing my feelings and findings with stuttering on paper. I wrote about my childhood and my struggles. I wrote about my mom. I brought back all these memories and I cried like a baby, but I never stopped writing. Sometimes I wrote for hours locked in my room. I wrote about some useful techniques that I use in dealing with stuttering and how I trained my mind by focusing on my environment  in order to speak fluently. It was liberating to write and share my findings on paper.

Then, in May 2016, I decided that I should turn all my notes in into a book that would change people’s lives and help them speak fluently. I decided to hire an editor and embark on this  journey. Journey of service and contribution. Journey of hope and light in the world.

Then someday while I was reflecting on my life, it dawned on me. I found my purpose for living. All these years I was running away from stuttering and avoiding talking about it. But not anymore. My purpose is to inspire and encourage millions of people who stutter each day with my life story.

I’ve finished the book and it’s on its way to being published. The title is “Overcoming Stuttering, My Story: Five Ways to Speaking Fluently Forever.” The release date is April 3rd 2017 and I cannot be more happy and excited. In order to make a big difference in the world, I decided to send all the profits from my book to building schools for kids in Guatemala with the organization Pencils of Promise. I also want to dedicate it to my late mother. Why?

I want to help and inspire millions of people so that after I’m gone, the whole world remembers that I was here.

One day, friend asked me, “What is your motivation for doing this if it’s not for money or fame?” I said to him, “My motivation is seeing the faces of those kids when I build that school and seeing people speaking fluently after they read my book. Knowing that I made a difference in somebody’s life. There is no greater motivation than that.”

This is how I plan to make a difference and make this world a better place. Now it’s your turn. How are you going to make a difference in the world?

As our past selves make appearances in our present and our future, it can become difficult to keep hold of the glory that is ourselves. But we have to be stronger than our past.

In life we have many experiences: some extraordinary, others abysmal and some we are just plain indifferent to. We choose to either feel these things or to not feel them.

We live human lives. Lives in which we cry, laugh, and breathe.

Lives where we can create, shape, mold, but also dismantle, destroy, and overturn. We are comprised of moments that we wish we could replay a million times in our heads, and moments that we wish to simply erase.

It is in these innate moments, in these details,  that we can choose to become broken by the world or choose to thrive in a world that’s broken.

I personally had to learn how to do this. For years, I was haunted by low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Based on events and chapters of my past, I would get discouraged when trying to live my life’s story.

Having a father who died, a mother who struggled with addiction and was rarely in my life, years of abandonment issues, incidents of sexual abuse occur, and many other things I’ve experienced in life have shaped who I am.

I had come to a place where I let those things dictate who I was as a person.

It took three attempted suicides, a trip to the suicide ward, and various therapy sessions to realize that my life was built upon the feeling of unworthiness. This was not the life I wanted to live anymore. It wasn’t a life that I was meant to live.

It became clear to me that after every attempt to kill myself, I was still alive, my heart refused to stop beating. I came to a realization within myself that I was stronger than I ever thought. It was then I decided that I, not my situations in life, would declare what and who I am.

Who I am is Quinnita Faith Edwards. I am loving and caring, thoughtful and hopeful. I am strong.

Careful but sometimes careless. I am confident yet scared at times, terrified about life and also excited. I am misunderstood, misguided, and sometimes misled. I am hardworking and determined. I believe in passion. I pray to God, wish on stars, and dream my dreams.

In order to reach this level of self I had to go through a lot of rough patches but I know that if I were to reverse any of it, I wouldn’t be where I am today. So I remember to simply live. To make mistakes and have a wonderful time doing so. To never be ashamed of where I have been, and most importantly to embrace where it is that I am going. Though I still have rough times and experience moments where I am insecure, I have learned that I am stronger than I ever thought.

What has made the biggest difference in my life has been the knowledge that God loves me and He has a plan. I believe (as presented by my favorite author C.S. Lewis) that life is a series of peaks and troughs, and it is a ridiculous assumption for us to believe that it would be all peaks.

Though God certainly uses the peak times to help us grow, I believe that there’s something special He does in us in these trough times that give us character and develop us into who He wants us to be. My story is a testament to this.

When I was seven, my Dad’s job transferred. As a family of six we packed up and moved across the world to Istanbul, Turkey. At the time, reassured by the fact that there would still be Barbies wherever we moved, I wasn’t too concerned. However, growing up in a country away from your birthplace has its challenges.

I began school at an International school, but when I had not picked up the Turkish language by fifth grade, my parents gave me the option of transferring to a local school. Without giving it too much thought, I took them up on it.

The first week was incredibly rough for me. I spoke little Turkish, and I was placed in a classroom with 53 other students.

I couldn’t communicate and was out of my comfort zone. I came home crying after school every day the first week. However, through this God showed me that He was my refuge, and He would take care of me regardless of my circumstances. Through this tough time also came the ability to speak Turkish, in addition to some amazing friendships that have continued through college.

Another tough transition for me was moving back to the United States. After graduating from high school I decided to attend the University of Georgia, Go Dawgs! However, my friends from high school scattered across the country and world, so apart from my aunt and uncle. I knew no one in this new place. In addition, there was once again a cultural difference, despite no language barrier.

Growing up overseas meant that although I am shaped like an American on the outside, inwardly I am shaped quite differently.

Once again, I was really hurting, and I didn’t feel like I had anyone to cling to. Everything I had known and grown up with was 5,000+ miles away, including my family. Once again, God showed me His faithfulness. He showed me that when He brings me to something,  He’s also going to bring me through it. He showed me that He is with me no matter what. He showed me once again that He wants to have a relationship with me, and that all I have to do is come to Him.

Though this was a challenging time, I’m stronger because of it. Though it might have been easier for me not to move back to the US. for college, God brought me closer to Himself through this, and once again has given me some amazing relationships.

Today, God continues to show me His faithfulness and how He uses the tough times in my life to make me more like Himself. As an aspiring journalist, I interned with a news agency this summer. Confronted with the headlines of international news stories each day has been challenging. Through this too God has shown me more of who He is. When I see how truly broken the world around us is, I recognize the world’s need for a savior.

How fantastic it is to learn that God loved us enough to send His son to die for our sins and to give us hope. What an amazing realization that we have a God who understands suffering, and who promises us His presence through the peaks and the troughs.

I’m so thankful for a God that makes life delightful no matter where in the world we live, as He has promised his presence to us through it all and uses what seems like the toughest times for our good.

As a gymnast, flipping through the air on a four inch beam requires the highest level of concentration and balance. I have spent over 15 years of my life practicing balance beam, and at times, I still lose my balance.

In life, just like gymnastics, balance is one of the hardest skills to achieve and also one of the most important. I believe it is a lifelong, learning process that requires self-discipline and adaptability. Achieving success as a student-athlete in the classroom and in competition is absolutely impossible without it; and I have learned this lesson the hard way.

My life as a high-school student and club gymnast consisted of two things: school and gymnastics. School was never too much of a challenge for me.

I stayed on top of my school work, managed to get A’s and B’s, and focused the majority of my time and effort on my passion…gymnastics.

My hard work in the gym paid off, and I was given the opportunity to compete at the collegiate level on full athletic scholarship. Something I will forever be grateful for.

I had two realizations after my first semester of college: school is hard; and I love being social.

However, college presented itself with a whole new set of challenges. I had two realizations after my first semester of college: school is hard; and I love being social. Because I spent the majority of my life prior to college in the gym, my social life was nonexistent, other than my teammates who were more like sisters to me; but I was completely fine with that.

My drive and determination to excel in gymnastics and compete for the best college in the country (UGA) trumped any desire to have a social life.

June, 2013, I moved into the dorms at UGA. I was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of people that shared the same love of sport that I have. We all spent our entire existence dedicated to our sport, something that few people understand.

I made so many friends freshman year. Often times, I would sacrifice studying for hanging out with friends. It wasn’t long before my GPA began to suffer. I knew I had to make a change.

Instead of limiting the amount of time I spent socializing, I began to sacrifice sleep; and believe me when I tell you, I need sleep! I quickly realized that playing egg toss in the hallways until 1 a.m. with the swimmers that lived next door, or teaching the baseball players how to do flips on the couch (luckily there were no serious injuries) was not the wisest use of my time. My lack of sleep was beginning to affect my concentration in the classroom and in the gym.

My body couldn’t keep up. I was tired, overwhelmed, and stressed. I was off balance.

Sophomore came with nagging injury, maybe resulting from a lack of focus, that added to my stress and frustration. I wanted to be healthy, I wanted to compete, I wanted to reach my full potential in the sport I love, and in the classroom. I needed BALANCE.

I knew my struggles in the gym and school were God’s way of telling me, “you have to make a change.”

I needed to prioritize.

I needed to invest my time into relationships that would last a lifetime rather than sacrificing my studies or sleep for friends that are there for me only when it’s convenient for them. I knew this transition wouldn’t happen overnight.

It was going to take me exerting self-discipline in consistently making good decisions that would put me in a position to reach my full potential in all areas of life. I knew it would be tough, but God creates His toughest soldiers through life’s hardest battles.

The end of my sophomore season as a gym dog was steadily approaching, and things were finally beginning to look up. My ankles were almost at 100% and my GPA was on the rise.

I continued to strive to make good decisions with my time. Taking on a support role for the beginning of the season was new to me, but it taught me to be encouraging, patient, and hungry for the spotlight again. I sought out every opportunity to prove myself in the gym.

I would say a prayer every time, “God, pleeeease let her call my name. I want to compete soooo bad.” But every time I heard, “…and Morgan will be the alternate.”

The last few meets of the regular season were upon us. When Coach Danna Durante began to call out the lineups for the upcoming meet, everyone was silent. I would say a prayer every time, “God, pleeeease let her call my name. I want to compete soooo bad.” But every time I heard, “…and Morgan will be the alternate.” I had to take this as a challenge. A challenge to work even harder in the gym; to continue to push my teammates and prove that I was ready to compete.

The last meet of the season was at home vs Utah. Danna called out the lineups; but this time, I was not an alternate. I was competing second on beam and first on floor! I was excited and ready.

That night, I competed with a new appreciation for the opportunity to compete as a gym dog.

I hit had a solid beam routine, followed by a memorable floor routine to tie my career high score of 9.9. I secured my spot in both lineups going into post season. My team and I went on to win Regionals, and then later placed 9th at the NCAA Championships.

Halfway through my college career, and I continue to strive for balance in all areas of my life. It is a lifelong process. With different stages in life, come different things to balance. Prioritize what’s important, rely on God to take care of things out of our control, and live a peaceful, balanced life full of happiness rather than stress and anxiety.

It has the uniquely horrible ability to inflict masses of people and blind them from seeing any potential beauty or art.

This unfortunate condition inevitably inhibits any person from acceptance of other cultures or other beliefs. Ignorance is not bliss – it is destructive.

On Friday night, I received word of an attack committed against the parents of a friend of mine. Initially in disbelief, I learned that my friend Trisha Ahmed’s father, Avijit Roy, had visited Bangladesh to attend a book fair. He was a blogger and writer of secularism who had been inspiring a plethora of freethinkers around the world for years.

Roy’s life work garnered the attention of Islamic extremists in Bangladesh who waited for he and his wife, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, after the book fair. It was then that these machete-wielding extremists murdered my friend’s dad and wounded her mother.

These people were so riddled with misunderstanding; their hatred was fueled by nothing less than pure, unadulterated ignorance.

Roy was not unaware of the response people like these extremists had to his writing, yet he was not discouraged, and his passion remained unwavering. Unaffected by their ignorance, Roy continued his work even when he received death threats, pursuing what he was passionate for. It is because of this that Avijit Roy was forced to give his life – for never concealing or abandoning his beliefs.

The radical assailants who murdered Trisha’s dad have come forward, yet have not been prosecuted. This disconnect in the justice system of Bangladesh would hardly even be fathomable in the United States and many other Western nations.

Our society recognizes injustices such as the manslaughter of Roy’s and we treat such atrocities accordingly.

However, without global recognition of the killing of Avijit Roy, it is likely that his death is never brought to trial and his murderers go unpunished, which cannot be ignored by the international community. Regrettably, the death of my friend’s dad is simply one example of countless injustices that infect our world – don’t let the disease spread.

If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. Share the story. Reduce the ignorance.