Bethany Hamilton
Bethany Hamilton
Bethany Meilani Hamilton-Dirksis an American professional surfer who survived a 2003 shark attack in which her left arm was bitten off, but ultimately returned to—and was victorious in—professional surfing. She wrote about her experience in the 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. In April 2011, the feature film Soul Surfer was released ...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSurfer
Date of Birth8 February 1990
CityLihue, HI
CountryUnited States of America
My only real fear was that I would not be able to surf again because I was concerned that I would not physically be able to do it. I knew that if I wasn't able to surf then my life would really change.
You fall off the horse and you get back on.
It's been amazing to touch people's lives.
I don't want easy, just possible.
In the end, my love for surfing helped me overcome my fear of sharks.
Being able to turn to Jesus after the shark attack kept me alive.
Being creative on the waves is challenging, but we each create art in our own way.
Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.
I don't really want people looking to me for inspiration. I just want to be a sign along the way that points toward Heaven.
I guess I just like to challenge myself and push myself harder to do things that I dont think I can, to do things that other people do not think I can. It pushes me. I push my own personal limits.
God has a lot more to give and to offer than the world has to give.
It's hard for me to describe the joy I felt after I stood up and rode wave in for the first time after the attack. I was incredibly thankful and happy inside. The tiny bit of doubt that would sometimes tell me you'll never surf again was gone in one wave.
Our health and well-being is something that we can almost control, to a certain extent. We can choose to eat healthy, we can choose to think positively, and we can choose to have good posture. All this stuff makes a difference, and the way that you look and feel, and your confidence.
None of us are going to have perfect lives. Our own vision of what we think is good maybe different from what He [God] thinks. And we forget that. We think we know what's best and we don't.