What if the story you’ve been hiding… is the very thing that could help heal the world?
By Dr. Aimmee Kodachian, h.c.
As I walked onto the stage in Qatar, surrounded by global leaders and dignitaries, something stirred deep inside me. I wasn’t only stepping forward—I was stepping back.
Back into the shoes of a 12-year-old girl, whose world was shattered in an instant, at the very beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. It was an unforgettable day when my favorite and older brother, Robert, was killed in front of my eyes as a bomb tore through our living room.
One second, we were having a heartfelt conversation about my dreams — he was encouraging me to become a teacher and believe in myself. Next, I was screaming his name through smoke and flames, watching his hand disappear into the fire. The bombs didn’t stop. With each explosion, the ground trembled beneath me, and I was shaken to my core.
My family became homeless — we lost everything in the blink of an eye. That moment crushed my spirit and stole my childhood.
As the war intensified, my parents placed my six-year-old brother, Roger, and me in the mountains for safety. Not long after, we lost connection with our family for several months, and I had no hope that I would ever see them again. I was a child, holding Roger tightly with each bomb that shook the ground. I had to become his protector, pretending to be strong when fear was all I knew.
That night in Qatar, I wasn’t giving a speech.
I was delivering her message of faith and hope—a message born from deep pain, when a bomb took her brother’s life. A message from a girl who suffered silently with dyslexia, couldn’t read or write, who was bullied and abused, and had every reason to give up… but didn’t.
Because God had a greater plan.
Delivering a Message That Was Never Meant to Be Mine Alone
As I spoke, I could feel my spirit leaving the stage and returning to those moments—moments of loss, silence, and holding on to hope through the ache.
I was no longer standing before world leaders. I had returned to the boarding school classroom, sitting alone at the back, unable to read the words on the page. There, I became the girl who was punished and abused by her teacher and bullied by her classmates — the one who felt broken and invisible, hiding behind her own shadow. Beyond the walls of that classroom, she was also the girl who had lost her beloved brother to the war — and with him, the last of her hope.
At my lowest point, when I had no voice, no comfort, and no sense of belonging, I was given a divine gift—what I now call the Miracle Light. It was not something I earned. It was something I was entrusted with. It lit a path I didn’t even know I could walk. And it reminded me:
God sees what others overlook.
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