Iron lady

Why me?

It’s a question we all ask when life breaks us in ways we didn’t see coming. When the world beneath us shatters. When pain becomes too heavy to carry. When nothing makes sense anymore. That question haunted a young woman named Muniba Mazari—not once, but countless times—after life took an unexpected, tragic turn.

Muniba was just 21 years old, bright with dreams and newly married, full of ambition and love for life. She wanted to be an artist, a teacher, a woman who made a difference. Living in Pakistan, she believed she had her future mapped out. But one morning changed everything. While driving with her husband, their car skidded off the road and plunged into a ditch. In an instant, her world turned upside down. The crash was brutal. Muniba sustained multiple fractures—her arm, shoulder, ribs, and worst of all, her spine.

When the doctors delivered their verdict, it was cold and final: she would never walk again. Paralyzed from the waist down, Muniba was left with shattered bones and a question that wouldn’t stop echoing in her mind: “Why me?”

Why had this happened to her? Why was she left alive, only to suffer? Her dreams, it seemed, had been stolen in the blink of an eye.

She spent months in the hospital, enduring surgery after surgery. Her body slowly began to heal, but her spirit was breaking. She could no longer walk, or dress herself, or live the life she had once known. She fell into a deep depression, feeling invisible even to the people who loved her. Friends and family tiptoed around her pain, unsure of how to help. Their silence often spoke louder than words.

That cruel question—“Why me?”—grew louder, until one day, something shifted. A quiet voice deep inside her whispered something new. “What if this didn’t happen to me,” it asked, “but for me?”

Lying in bed, Muniba began to see a canvas in her mind—not just a literal one, but a canvas for her life. Her hands still worked. Her mind was still alive. Her heart still beat. Slowly, painfully, she picked up a paintbrush again. Each stroke was a battle. But as color returned to the canvas, it also returned to her world. She began to paint her pain, her hope, her dreams, her fight to find meaning in the chaos.

But that wasn’t all. She began to speak—not just through her art, but through her voice. At first, it was terrifying to tell her story. But every time she spoke, someone in the audience cried. Someone said, “Thank you.” Someone said, “I needed this.” And so, she kept going.

Her message grew louder. Her platform grew bigger. And the world started to listen.

Today, Muniba Mazari is known as *The Iron Lady of Pakistan*. She became the country’s first wheelchair-using model, a celebrated artist, a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, a powerful motivational speaker, and a proud mother to an adopted son. She broke every limitation that society—and her own body—tried to place on her.

She often tells people: “Don’t wait for a perfect life to begin living. Your strength is not in your legs or arms. It’s in your soul.”

And as for the question that once broke her—“Why me?”—she now answers it with fierce grace: “Because I was strong enough to handle it. Because someone out there needed to see that it’s possible to live after loss.”

We all face moments that threaten to break us—accidents, illness, betrayal, failure, heartbreak. And in those moments, it’s natural to ask, “Why me?” But what truly matters is what comes after the question. Will we stay in the darkness? Or will we reach for the light within us?

Life will never be fair. It will never be predictable. But what we do with what happens to us—that’s where strength is born. Muniba’s story is not just hers. It is a mirror to every person who has ever been broken and doubted they could be whole again.

If you’re in that place right now… if your heart is whispering, “Why me?” maybe the answer is this:

Because your story isn’t over yet. Because someone needs your courage. Because something powerful can be born from your pain.