My Story

by Elizabeth Smart

Which left me with this: When faced with pain and evil, we have to make a choice. We can choose to be taken by the evil. Or we can try to embrace the good.

“Elizabeth, what this man has done is terrible. There aren’t any words that are strong enough to describe how wicked and evil he is! He has taken nine months of your life that you will never get back again. But the best punishment you could ever give him is to be happy. To move forward with your life. To do exactly what you want.

if you hold on to your pain, that is allowing him to steal more of your life away. So don’t you do that! Don’t you let him! There is no way that he deserves that. Not one more second of your life. You keep every second for yourself. You keep them and be happy.

All of us are human. But we are also the masters of our fate. We are the ones who decide how we are going to react to life.

There is one other very important explanation for why I’ve been able to overcome what happened to me. I believe in gratitude.

But you remember all those hard times, right? And because you remember all those hard times, you can remember the depth of your gratitude.