Mormon blogger Stephanie Nielson spoke to students and faculty at BYU-Idaho’s devotional Tuesday.
Nielson shared her memories and experiences surrounding the 2008 plane crash that burned 80 percent of her body and the trials she endured as a result.
Nielson shared with students that following the accident she didn’t feel like the same person who had boarded the small airplane that August day in 2008.
“I wasn’t that woman anymore,” she said in the talk. “In fact I didn’t even feel like a woman. I felt like a monster.”
Nielson said that it was very difficult for her to look in the mirror even after she returned from the hospital but that she prayed to like what she saw in the mirror. She recalled looking in the mirror pondering after the accident.
“Who is this person in the mirror?" She said to herself. “Will I ever like the way I look again? Can I love myself if I look this way?”
She put on some mascara hoping it would help her feel better but it didn’t.
“I had been taught and thoroughly believed in my infinite worth as a daughter of God," Nielson said. "I knew my value as a person transcended my looks but that belief was being tested as I looked at my disfigured reflection in the mirror.”
As these thoughts went through her mind, she started to cry. Her husband Christian came in to comfort her. She remembers that she was just closing her eyes to take in her husband’s embrace when she heard her son cry.
Nielson wanted to comfort him but worried he wouldn't respond well. She decided she would go comfort him anyway and was able to rediscover her identity as a mother.
Nielson shared details of a conversation she had with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a particularly difficult day. Elder Holland taught her the value of the scars she was left with following her accident. She said that he explained that Nielson's scars were "a witness of a miracle."
Nielson also wrote on her blog about the experience of speaking at BYU-I, while acknowledging that she plans to write more upon returning home from Rexburg.
In addition to her blog Nielson has founded a public charity called Beauty Rises, which focuses on helping struggling people to find hope. She has also been featured on a Mormon messages video.
“Now when I look in the mirror I see a woman of faith, a woman of courage, I see a mother, a daughter and a wife," Nielson said in her talk. “In my scars, I see strength I see hope, I see miracles, I see God.”
Listen to Nielson's talk in it's entirety here.
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