Cara Lacey

I go to a youth group every Wednesday. I go to a small bible study group a few times each month. Faith and religion is a dominant part of my life everyday and my hero is the person who helped me find my faith and find what it means to follow God everyday, being a teenager. Cara Lacey is a mom, youth fellowship leader, and a friend to every person she meets. When I talked to her, she was completely honored, but humbled, to be written about as a hero. She helps teens today because of her upbringing and life she had as she was growing up.

Cara's parents divorced when she was really young, as in a few months old. She lived with her mother and her mother remarried when she was six. Cara was never close to her step-father or her biological father, either. She had a rough time growing up without that attention and father/male figure in her life. Cara told me she dealt with that by being a "wild child." She partied, went crazy, and hung out with guys. She wanted, begged, for the attention. Where else would she get that male figure? Cara said that guys could make or break her day, depending on what they said. She struggled the real struggles we all struggle in teen years. Being accepted, insecurities, and trying to find who she is as a person. After high school, when she was enrolled in college and getting ready for the real party scene, she got a wake-up call.

Cara was pregnant with a baby. She didn't know what to do. 18, scared, and torn apart, she got married to the father of the baby but things were rough from the start. After the baby, Lexi, was born, Cara faced basically a brick wall. She and her husband divorced and she was the caregiver of an infant. Cara told me that the thing that impacted her the most then was the fact she realized that every need Lexi had, was on her. Lexi couldn't get it from an aunt, a grandmother, a father figure. Cara was responsible for Lexi. And that was that.

Cara grew up in a Christian household, she believed and knew Christ was real, but Christ wasn't in her heart. Cara was very confused for a while, trying out new churches and new messages with her new husband, Chris, and baby Lexi. The first time she went to a church that taught directly from the bible, and she found out the clarity of the message and wanted to teach about it too. She said her hero is her grandmother because of the unconditional love her grandma gave her, no matter how much she screwed up. Cara taught me to love without a filter, because everyone, no matter how much they wronged you, deserves a hug. Deserves love that makes them look forward to tomorrow and love that makes them smile every time they look into their heart.

Cara said she doesn't consider herself a hero, at all. The direct quote from her is, "I would never put the word hero and my name even in the same sentence!" But to me, Cara is a hero in every sense of the world. She looked inside herself and learned to forgive herself and the mistakes she made. When you acknowledge you're human and know that you aren't perfect, that is when you are a hero. That's when people start to look up to you She's humble but talks about her faith and spreads the Word of Christ through every teen, adult, and child she meets. She's an inspiration to me in what I do everyday and how I try to spread the Word too.