Hostage By: Jacob Smiley

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The Before How I acted before the incident happened.

The Change What happened to cause my personal life to

change. The Aftermath

The person that it made me into today.

“Forget yesterday - it has already forgotten you. Don't sweat tomorrow - you haven't even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart

to a truly precious gift - today.”

-Steve Maraboli

The Before

I took life for granted. Growing up I was given everything I ever needed or wanted. I had a loving family, even though I did not always realize it. I had a lot of belongings that I made more important than they really were. I also had a lot of friends that I did not always seem to appreciate all of the time. On top of all of these things, I never thanked God for everything He had given me.

I was incautious. As a teenager, I was not very cautious about how I went about my life. I often left doors unlocked since I had grown up in a small town with low crime. I went wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted even if it might have been an unsafe scene. I also never thought that anything was going to happen to me or my family that would put us into danger.

Little did I know….

The Change

It was a normal night at my house when a strange person ran in my house.He looked like a police officer but we quickly found out that he was an armed convict that had escaped. With his gun pointed at my family he shouted demands towards my family.I was sitting there scared and wondering if I would be killed and why this was happening to me.

He wanted clothes, our cell phones, money and car keys to help him escape.After complete cooperation he took our car keys and left, just giving my sister and I time to escape.Before he could leave police showed up, forcing him to hide. He retrieved back into my house, where we thought my mom was still hidden. Worried that my mom was in danger my grandfather went inside to try to rescue her.

I sat outside praying that my mother and grandfather would be okay.Even though the police were claiming everything would be fine, I was still doubtful that my life would be the same.After realizing my mother was safe outside, my grandfather and police negotiated and the convict was apprehended safely with no one harmed.

The Aftermath

I have had personal struggles.I now worry about mine and my family’s everyday safety.Because I was from a small town everyone knew about it and my family was the talk of the town for weeks.I had to go through the legal part of the issue, and had to testify in court as a teenager.

I am more thoughtful.I see how blessed I am today and what everyone does for me, where before I did not always see how blessed I truly was.I realized that life is much more precious than I had thought.

I am more precautious.I now see that this world is a much more cruel place than I thought before.I make sure to lock the doors and think about safety first, and make it a higher priority than before.

Beginning as a very bad situation that I thought would end even worse, there have been many

good things to come of it. Although I would never want this to happen to me again it helped

shaped me into the person that I am today. I have realized so many things that I did not

realize before and it has made me consider a lot more and appreciate a lot more than before.

Works Cited

Maraboli, Steve. Life, the Truth, & Being Free. Port Washington, NY: Better Today, 2009. Print.