From an email received yesterday -
When she was in high school, Lizzie Velasquez was dubbed "The
World's Ugliest Woman" in an 8-second-long YouTube video. Born with a
medical condition so rare that just two other people in the world are
thought to have it, Velasquez has no adipose tissue and cannot create
muscle, store energy, or gain weight. She has zero percent body fat and
weighs just 60 pounds.
In the comments on YouTube, viewers called her "it" and "monster"
and encouraged her to kill herself. Instead, Velasquez set four goals:
To become a motivational speaker, to publish a book, to graduate
college, and to build a family and a career for herself.
Now 23 years old, she's been a motivational speaker for seven
years and has given more than 200 workshops on embracing uniqueness,
dealing with bullies, and overcoming obstacles. She's a senior majoring
in Communications at Texas State University in San Marcos, where she
lives with her best friend. Her first book, "Lizzie Beautiful," came
out in 2010 winning the hearts of many around the world and her second,
"Be Beautiful, Be You," was published earlier September and In 2013
she's hoping to write her third book.
"The stares are what I'm really dealing with in public right now,"
she told Dr. Drew Pinsky in an interview on CNN's Headline News. But I
think I'm getting to the point where... instead of sitting by and
watching people judge me, I'm starting to want to go up to these people
and introduce myself or give them my card and say, 'Hi, I'm Lizzie.
Maybe you should stop staring and start learning'."
Velasquez was born in San Antonio, Texas; she was four weeks
premature and weighed just 2 pounds, 10 ounces. "They told us they had
no idea how she could have survived," her mother, Rita, 45, told the
Daily Mail. "We had to buy doll's clothes from the toy store because
baby clothes were too big." Doctors warned Rita and her husband, Lupe,
that their oldest child would never be able to walk or talk, let alone
live a normal life. (Her two younger siblings were not affected by the
syndrome.)
Instead, she has thrived. Her internal organs, brain, and bones
developed normally, though her body is tiny. Since she has no fatty
tissue in which to store nutrients, she has to eat every 15 to 20
minutes to have enough energy to get through the day. One brown eye
started clouding over when she was 4 years old, and now she's blind in
that eye and has only limited sight in the other.
Now why am I sharing Lizzie's story with you today?
Because it's the start of a brand new year and I know you have just
set or are about to set your New Year's resolutions and I want you to
be inspired to follow through with them!!!
If Lizzie can boldly go after her goals and dreams, despite her trying circumstances... what excuses do we have?
Remember that God has a purpose for everyone of us... My life
purpose/calling is to touch more lives and bring more love, hope and
joy to the world. Lizzie has embraced her circumstances and make it her
purpose to INSPIRE everyone to boldly go after their dreams and not let
anything hold them
back.
What's yours?
- Yee Shun-Jian
-
Duriyodhana's weakness was Arjuna. Somehow he was not able to stand Arjuna. He
wanted Arjuna to suffer a lot. 
