“But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’”

Isaiah 43:1

​She was only 14, just a couple months shy of her fifteenth birthday. Hundreds of miles away from home, she sat alone in her dorm room. Her class trip to Washington, D.C. was supposed to be fun, memorable. It would turn out to be very memorable, but not in a way that anyone would have imagined. She left her room and walked down the hall to ask a friend for some pain medicine. Maybe she said her head was bothering her. All these years later, I can’t remember her exact words. Back in her room, alone again, she did it. Feeling empty inside and thinking the world would be better off without her, she…