Andrea Worden Scholarship for Tenacity and Timeless Grace

I was 8 years old when my parents sat me down to explain the test results. I was 8 years old when they told me I would have to work harder and be tougher than the other kids in my class. I was 8 years old when I realized I was going to have to rely on more than just grades to get me through. Hi, my name is Lily Nease, and I have an IEP. Otherwise known as an Individual Education Plan. Which is really just a fancy way of saying I learn differently than other kids. When people ask me what exactly an IEP is I tell them all the same thing, "I'm 18 and couldn't tell you 5 plus 6 without using my fingers, I don't know any of the elements on the periodic table even though I have had to memorize it twice, I don't know when to use a comma, and if I want to spell something correctly I go to a friend." But all of that hides inside a girl who's afraid that if she stops smiling, someone will see the weight she carries every day. I was 8 when I decided my grades and progress in school wouldn't define who I was, because if they did, all you would see is a Senior in high school who has the reading level of a 5th grader and the math skills of a 2nd grader when I am so much more than that. So that same confused little girl resorted to being the kindest girl she could be. There's a quote by an unknown author that says, "You don't have to understand people's experiences to be kind. Kindness doesn't require logic, it requires grace." Grace is something that only certain people have and something only truly special people can see. To me, grace and kindness go hand in hand. Grace is the unspoken, unseen light that shimmers around someone unafraid to be kind. I had a friend once who walked with grace like it was an old friend. She taught me how to be the special type of kind, the kind that seeks nothing in return, that kind that silently changes people's lives without them even realizing it, and that kind of kindness where you can tell they have nothing left to give but they choose to give it to a stranger anyway. That same friend taught me an important lesson when I was growing up. She taught me to see past the rough edges of people and look at their hearts. She taught me to be kind, no matter the circumstances, because you never know what someone is going through. My friend always looked past people's backgrounds and looked to their futures, so now I do the same. I get the opportunity to be kind every day, but since I joined 4-H, that opportunity has tripled. I started a program where I teach underprivileged kids yoga, which teaches them how to deal with their anger and stress by taking deep breaths. I also teach kids in our county school's after-school programs how to paint, and this past year, I got to teach a blind girl how to paint. That moment changed my life because while I was teaching her to paint, you would have never known she was blind. Her smile lit up the whole room, and her laughter was the music we painted to. And I think we all have a lesson to learn from her. Did she have to tell me she was blind? No. Did she have to announce to the class that she couldn't see? Also no. Because we all already knew before she got there, but the important lesson here is that you never would have known. That doesn't mean she was trying to hide who she was, but she was proving to us that her disability doesn't define her. And it doesn't define who I am either. "The most beautiful people I've met offer kindness as freely as the sun offers light."-Unknown. The point is that kindness can look like anything. It can look like teaching kids or complimenting a stranger, maybe it looks like buying a bracelet from a homeless woman in OKC, kindness can even look like a simple smile when it's needed most. I think a question we can all ask ourselves is what does kindness look like to me? And how can I be a little kinder than I was yesterday? Because that's what Andrea would ask. So I will too.