Sometimes our darkest moments become our greatest beacon of light and hope. In those moments, I’ve learned, we are often stronger than we have ever been. Even when, from the outside, we appear to be at our weakest.

In my mid-twenties, I had run a half-marathon and hiked a mountain in Montana. Over the course of a year, I became sicker and weaker, ending up in a wheelchair on my worst days. It was only a handful of times, but it was certainly impactful. Physically, I was deteriorating. Mentally, I was incredibly strong. No one on the outside could see what it took for me to get through each day.

Every morning began with a quiet assessment of my body. How am I feeling today? Throughout the day, I coached myself through the simplest tasks. Okay, all you have to do is stand up. That was always my first big goal. Just stand up. Then, take a step. Then, the next step. I would slowly hobble, sometimes barely walk, to wherever I needed to go. My entire day was made up of micro goals.

Goals I don’t even think about now in my forties. Back then, I had to plan every moment and conserve my energy as carefully as possible. Stairs filled me with dread. At first, I’d feel a pit in my stomach. Then I’d say, Okay, here we go. One step at a time. Every night, I prayed and told myself that sleep would nourish my body… tomorrow can be better.

We tried everything to figure out what was wrong. How had I gone from running a half-marathon to barely being able to walk? I was even taken to the emergency room from my school, an experience that was deeply embarrassing at the time.

When doctors couldn’t find answers, they told me it was stress. They said women handle stress differently than men. (I know. Don’t get me started. As a woman in my 40s, I would handle those conversations differently than I did in my 20s.) I knew it wasn’t true. I knew I was mentally strong. All day long, I was coaching myself, repeating something I had learned as a swimmer: Your body can do more than it thinks it can.

Then there was a pivotal moment, one that, on the surface, might look like giving up. But in reality, it became one of the most profound experiences of my life.

I was twenty-six years old. A newlywed. I had been teaching for four years and knew I would have to leave the profession, primarily because of my health. I was lying on the couch, trying to imagine what my life would look like now that my big goals and dreams had been reduced to simply getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other.

I wasn’t giving up, but I was confronting reality.

Even though I didn’t know what my future would look like, I was going to keep fighting. That was an absolute certainty. My first big goal was simple: make it to forty years old, even if this was how I had to live. My second big goal was to live one day longer than my mom. I didn’t want her to experience the pain of burying one of her children.

What was I going to do instead of teach? I couldn’t teach anymore. It wasn’t fair to my students. I had once been the teacher who jumped on desks, full of energy and enthusiasm. Now, there were days when students helped push my wheelchair or assisted me as I walked. That wasn’t who I was, and it wasn’t how I wanted to teach. I was ineffective, and I knew I needed a different path.

This was 2010, and the world was very different then. I kept asking myself, What in the world can I do? That’s when an idea began to take shape.

I could go into schools and encourage children to go after their goals and dreams! On my worst days, I’d bring a wheelchair. On better days, I’d hobble in on my own. I could teach them what I was learning: big goals are reached by breaking them down into small steps, and dreams can look different depending on the season of life you’re in.

I even thought, I might be able to make some money doing this. I didn’t know how much, but it was something. (For those who have never dealt with chronic health issues, it is unbelievably expensive to be sick. Making money was a necessity to help me function.) I tucked the idea away, along with a quiet decision that if I couldn’t chase big dreams myself, I would become an encourager for others. I would support my friends and family however I could.

A week later, everything shifted. I learned about a product that helped me, about a tree that strengthened me physically, and I pursued a network marketing business because of it. It surprised me how much I loved public speaking and entrepreneurship. The team I was on promoted personal development books and living with a growth mindset. I poured myself into this which turned into something completely unexpected…

Years later, when my daughter was one month old, another idea arrived. This time, it was for a children’s picture book which turned into a book series and a multi-faceted business.

Today, I go into schools and encourage children to chase their dreams. I have lived past forty. As I write this, I am forty-two.  At one point, I didn’t think I would ever have children because I was too sick to even take care of myself let alone someone else. Now, my husband and I have 2 incredible children.

Looking back, I can see things more clearly. Hindsight is 20/20 after all. Giving up my goals and dreams was the worst part of my poor health. It was gut wrenching. If I had stopped there, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to rewrite my life’s story. I redefined how my life would look because of my circumstances. It helped me feel some level of control over an uncontrollable situation, and it kept me hopeful that I still had a purpose. 

To this day, I chuckle when I make my own plans because time and again, I’ve learned that what I imagine often transforms into something far more beautiful and expansive than I could have ever dreamed.