Disclaimer: The following content contains subjects that may be troubling for some readers regarding rape, abduction, and pornography.
In a recent heartbreaking video released by Fight the New Drug, Elizabeth Smart Gilmour shares how pornography made her "living hell even worse."
Even during this devastating time, at a fireside at BYU-Hawaii, Gilmour shared that this trying time was also the most spiritual of her life.
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"I'll never forget how I felt, how life-shattering that felt to me," Gilmour said, recounting that first moment after being raped. "I remember feeling like I could no longer be loved, like I was no longer worthy to be a human being, period. I remember feeling like I had been broken into too many pieces I could never be fit back together again. . . . I remember feeling like my life was over but I was still living."
But then Gilmour began to think of everyone and everything that was important to her, especially her mother. And she remembered something her mother once told her: that Heavenly Father loved Gilmour so much and always would, and that she love Gilmour so much and nothing would ever change that.
"I realized that I always had my Heavenly Father to turn to, and my Savior." In that darkness, Gilmour realized that she had something her captor couldn't take away from her: faith, hope, and a love that no one could destroy.
"There wasn't a single day I didn't pray. . . It was the hardest time of my life, without a doubt, but at the same time, it was one of the most spiritual times of my life because I felt my Savior's presence so strongly in my life."
After nine months of captivity, Gilmour was rescued and finally reunited with her family. "I knew Heavenly Father had saved me," she recalls. "That was the happiest moment of my life."
Read more of Elizabeth Smart Gilmour's inspiring story with My Story: Elizabeth Smart.