Lessons for life

Here we have Frah Abdi at the Mountainous region of ‪#‎NagornoKarabakh‬ on a hilltop near the town of ‪#‎Shushi‬, ‪#‎Armenia‬.

Frah is a YMCA Staff Member at North London YMCA.

"My parents were among the many who had to make one of the hardest decisions of their lives. To send their child away to safety and hope for a better future. I was one of many Somali children to leave in such circumstances, leaving behind your entire family with the knowledge of sacrifice, intention of betterment and the reality of life's struggles. Growing up in a foreign country without the presence and guidance of your parents comes with a lot of obstacles and challenges. At 16, I ran away from home and I remember being in the park the whole day with friends like nothing was wrong. As it got darker people started to leave until I was the only person left in the park. That’s when I realised I had no home to go to. These challenges taught me that the only thing you can absolutely control in life is how you react to things out of your control, and there’s a lot you can’t control so the better you adapt to this reality, the more powerful your highs will be, and the more quickly you’ll be able to bounce back from the lows. Everything that happens to you in life is either an opportunity to learn and grow or an obstacle that keeps you stuck. You get to choose. My life’s experiences whilst growing up has led me to see the value in young people and provide opportunities for them that wasn’t available to me. Alhamdulillah I work for the biggest youth organisation in the world which enables me to do the job I love and lets me travel the world. So my brothers and sisters when life hits rock bottom, Take a deep breath; it’s going to be ok, maybe not today, but eventually. There will be times when it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong, You might feel like you will be stuck in this rut forever, but you won’t. Sure the sun stops shining sometimes, and you may get a huge thunderstorm or two, but eventually the sun will come out to shine. Sometimes it’s just a matter of us staying as positive as possible in order to make it to see the sunshine break through the clouds again and remember Allah won’t put you through more than you can bear, he might let you bend but he won’t let you break". ‪#‎SomaliSideways‬.