I’m living proof that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
What I don’t want is for people to pity me or think of me as a person who has had her life ruined. That’s not how I see it. My mom is always saying, “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Which is a great outlook on life, if you can actually see beyond the lemons when you’re up to your eyeballs in them. My strength came from my relationship with Christ and from the love and encouragement of my family and friends. In a lot of ways I’m like any fourteen-year-old-girl, and in a lot of ways, I’m not. If someone had told me this is how my life would be I would have never believed it. It would have seemed too bizarre to be true. Sometimes it still is. I often dream that I have both my arms again, and I wake up expecting the whole shark business to be a nightmare. But it’s not. It’s my reality now, and I’ve learned to accept it. I’ve moved on. I don’t pretend to have all the answers to why bad things happen to good people. But I do know that God knows all those answers, and sometimes He lets you know in this life, and sometimes He asks you to wait so that you can have a face-to-face talk about it. What I do know is that I want to use what happened to me as an opportunity to people that God is worthy of our trust, and to show them that you can go on and do wonderful things in spite of terrible events that happen. I don’t think it does any good to sit around feeling sorry for yourself. I made myself a promise: I’m not going to wallow or walk around moaning, “Woe is me!”
I am excited about some of the opportunities to travel and surf all around the world that have come as a result of my attack and return to surfing. But most of all I am excited about what the future holds. Will I make it to the pro. ranks in surfing? Will my lifelong friend and surf buddy, Alana, be paddling next to me in the years to come as she is now and was during the attack? Will I be able to make a difference, in some small way, in people’s lives by sharing my story? What does God have in store for me? I really don’t know, but I do know one thing for sure: the adventure has only just started.
