Skin — and how we react to skin — is so intertwined in how Michaela DePrince became a star ballerina. Please take the 11 minutes to pay close attention to this inspiring NBC news story.

My daughter and I watched Michaela’s remarkable journey in silence. I could feel my 19–year old daughter’s sincere emotional ride. At many points in the story I myself became numb.

The Chosen Ones.

That magazine that coincidentally flew into her reach, which inspired her visualization and belief was her fairy tale that became a reality. So sad that the loss of melanin pigment in her skin from the disease called vitiligo was seen as evil, based on superstitious myths that had been passed down for centuries in her country of Sierra Leone. She and many others with skin conditions are considered “cursed”!

Both of the sisters and other children of the tragic war–torn country became orphans of war, left so young. BUT NOTHING CAN STOP US FROM DREAMING OF HOW WE WANT OUR LIVES TO BE.

Michaela was guided by ancestors past: angels. So much unbearable tragedy that no child should witness, so much hopeless suffering by being treated as the unwanted “devil’s child”, could have left her permanently mentally scarred.

And then to be brought to a new, loving home and experience discouragement not based on her vitiligo condition, but based on stereotypes of girls who simply share her skin color — people again trying to make her natural–born skin a disadvantage, in a different way. She was a diamond and the dream in her secret chamber was the belief of becoming a dancer. We see and take our very own journey into her life of vitiligo and skin color prejudice and emotional scarring. We see a higher power that no man can see, touch nor alter our destiny.

I am a firm believer that the odds she faced could not crush her dream. Her story should be in schools. History books. World tours. Dream and believe!

Her vitiligo and complexion should never be covered with makeup. It is her beauty and her chosen spirit of above the odds. I do believe in Miracles. I do hope to meet her one day —although through viewing these 11 minutes, actually I did.

(Frame: NBC News video)