Elizabeth Smart may always be known as the girl who was kidnapped on June 2, 2002, but one thing she will not be known as, is a victim.
The now-30-year-old who was taken from her home when she was 14, recently opened up about the powerful advice her mom gave her the morning after she was rescued.
Smart says she’d always listened to her mother’s advice, but on this particular morning, her mom’s words became the single best piece of advice she’d ever given.
“Elizabeth, what these people have done to you is terrible, and there aren’t words strong enough to describe how wicked and evil they are,” Smart recalls her mom’s words in a Goalcast video.
“They have stollen nine months of your life away from you that you will never get back. But the best punishment you could ever give them is to be happy, is to move forward with your life, to do all the things you want to do. Because by feeling sorry for yourself, by holding onto the past, by reliving it, that’s only allowing them to steal more of your life away from you. And they don’t deserve that, they don’t deserve a single second more. So you need to be happy and you need to move on with your life.”
