SWEET REALIZATION

I was born right at the start of the civil crisis in my country. Some jokingly say it was my birth that spark the conflict. Unlike you, I took my first steps in a cold, wet jungle amidst stray bullets and bombs. I never experience the joy of being a child and the only toy I knew because I could see it almost every day was a gun which my parents later told me was used to kill thousands of innocent people and used as a weapon to perpetrate violence especially against women. Despite the fact that thousands of children my age give up the ghost during these hard times, I still hung on and my family said I was a miracle but I didn’t believe it.
At the beginning of my early teens, just when things seemed to be fine, my country, LIBERIA plunge into another crisis where I actually felt the emotional effect of a crisis where I saw friends and loved ones die, where children my age die from curable diseases and hunger, where young boys and girls where sexually violated and made to join the various warring factions and where survival of the fittest was the order of the day. But once again I survived enrolled in high school and graduated top five and the youngest graduate at age 16. My friends said I was a miracle. I still did not believe I was a miracle.
My background has made me the young woman I am today working to make sure children does not have to experience what I experience during my early days on earth and that my country and the rest of the world will be a safe and better place for all children. When the opportunity to be a world pulse correspondent came my way and when I was at last selected as the only correspondent to represent the dreams and aspirations of thousands of young women in LIBERIA and the rest of the world the thought of agreeing with my family and friends that I was a miracle was hard to ignore.
Writing this story, I realized that I am Marvelous, I am an Inspiration ,I am Resilient, I am an Advocate, I am Caring, I am Loving and I am an Educator which finally convinces me and I NOW agree with my family and friends that I am indeed a MIRACLE.