Best hour spent

I listened to Stephanie Nielson speak to a crowd of about 10,000 Thursday night. Well, maybe not that many but I'll bet the Ballroom in the Wilk has never held so many people. What an inspiring woman! I shed some tears while listening but I was taking notes, sitting next to my reporter and photographer, so I didn't want to get going too much. I met Amy after and made her drive home while I cried the whole time, telling her things Stephanie said and of the pictures she showed.

If you don't know who she is, she was a popular blogger (NieNieDialogues.blogspot.com) and she and her husband were in a plane crash in 2008 where was burned over 84 percent of her body. The only parts that were unburned were the top of her head and the tips of her toes. The doctors have been growing new skin from her own skin to graft onto the worst burnt areas of her body.

The pictures of her after the accident were so hard to look at. The saddest story she told was of seeing her children for the first time in five months since the accident. She hadn't seen herself in a mirror and when she finally looked she described a "monster." Her children were brought in and one daughter looked at her, then didn't look at her again for three months.

The purpose of the event was to tell women about what beauty is. She is beautiful. Not in the sense that society defines beauty because that was burned away in a plane crash in August of 2008. Her beauty comes from her faith, her love of life, her love for her husband and children and her love for the gospel. She probably didn't want the burden of passing this message on, but she does it gracefully and believably. The Lord is using her as a tool of inspiration that we are all beloved children of our Heavenly Father, not matter what we look like or our limitations. And someday, as she walks through the veil, she'll be whole again and pain free. Until then, she's a marvel.