I'm grateful for rain because, when I was kidnapped, that meant that I had something to drink.
Elizabeth SmartRead
Privacy is so sacred, and any time a victim is returned, a survivor is found and rescued, privacy is one of the greatest gifts we can give them because if they decide to share, that's up to them, and they will come forward.
Interpretation
Privacy is essential for survivors to feel safe and in control of their own narrative.
In this quote, Elizabeth Smart emphasizes the importance of privacy for victims and survivors of trauma or abuse. She asserts that allowing survivors the space and choice to share their experiences is a profound gift, as it empowers them to regain control and decide how and when they wish to communicate their stories. The act of respecting their privacy not only supports their healing process but also facilitates their potential to come forward on their own terms.
In practice
During a speech about trauma recovery to emphasize the importance of personal space.
I'm grateful for rain because, when I was kidnapped, that meant that I had something to drink.
Yesterday from my office window I saw a crippled girl negotiating her way across the street, her shoulders squarely braced. At each jerky movement her hair flew back like an annunciatory angel, and I saw she was the only dancer on the street.
How can I be kind? How can I find bird-relief in the nest-building of day-to-day? Necessity supplies no velvet wing with which to escape. I am indeed and mortally pierced with the seeds of love.
That happened to me, but I'm so much more than that girl that was kidnapped.
Even when I get on airplanes, very often, as I walk down the aisle, I notice a lot of people staring or whispering. I recognize the fact that yes, to a lot of people, I will always be that 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped and who was held captive.
I think forgiveness is probably one of the greatest forms of self-love there is because you don't do forgiveness for anybody else. My captors will never care if I forgive them... It will not make a day of difference to them at all, but it will make a huge difference to me.
To be friends with God means to pray with simplicity, like children talking to their parents.
Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.
Humanity, its dignity and its balance, will depend at every moment and on every place on the globe,on who man is for woman and who woman is for man.
Marriage is about becoming a team. You’re going to spend the rest of your life learning about each other, and every now and then, things blow up. But the beauty of marriage is that if you picked the right person and you both love each other, you’ll always figure out a way to get through it.
Feeling we have to be constantly updated about the lives of our friends and that everything we say has to be out there leads to frustration, anger and jealousy much more than it leads to anything else.
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
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