Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapping occurred on June 5, 2002, when 14-year-old American was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Smart was found nine months later on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee, who were indicted for her kidnapping, but initially ruled unfit to stand trial. However, on March of this year U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball declared Brian David Mitchell competent to stand trial.

Because of this new development, Elizabeth Smart who is serving a mission for the Church of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church) in Paris, France, had to return temporarily from her mission to testify in the  trial.

Today I was reminded of this story by a long article on CNN about Elizabeth Smart’s Mormon mission. The article explains that

For more than a year, Smart, who recently turned 23, has been in the midst of her LDS Church mission, a rite of passage hallowed by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The article overall is pretty good and respectful, in spite of little biases that show up here and there, such as when it describes an LDS Church mission as  ”a rite of passage” (as expression that does not convey the proper meaning of a Mormon mission), or when it says that Elizabeth Smart has “been cut off from television, barred from seeing movies and prohibited from following the news”  as if she was again “captive” for religious reasons.

It was also interesting to read a few of the many comments to the article, starting with the one that set the tone for the rest of the comments, a heated debate between believers and non-believers,

Faith is the one thing I will never understand; This young lady has seen the dark side and yet she still believes in the Great Not There

or this reply,

Trying to convince people about faith is like trying to convince blind people that there is such thing as sight. “If I have not seen/experienced it, then it must not exist”

Elizabeth Smart testifying in the courtroom in the middle of her Mormon mission is a powerful way of testifying at the same time about her faith, not only because of what she says, but also because of what she does or does not, and what she has become. I am sure that her testimony of God and the Gospel is a lot stronger because of her unfortunate experience.  But she had the ability to overcome adversity and transform a sad experience in an great opportunity to testify to the world about her faith. She could have abandoned her faith, many would have felt justified in doing it by a wrong understanding of God and spiritual things. As the first comment above demonstrates, some assume that because bad things happen to people then God does not exist, or does not care. But He exists and He cares, we are under trial to prove our faithfulness, not Him.

So now, as the article appropriately mentions, Elizabeth Smart has a great opportunity of testifying about her faith, even when she will not mention it directly, because

What we do know is that as Smart testifies about her painful past, the media, the jury and others following this sensational case are hanging on her every word

Congratulations Elizabeth!