Godspower Mercy Lawal ’25 delivered a SEVEN Talk at the 2025 Alumni Forum in Chapel Hill on October 18. Mercy is the founder and past president of the African Students Association.
Godspower Mercy Lawal ’25 delivered a SEVEN Talk at the 2025 Alumni Forum in Chapel Hill on October 18. Mercy is the founder and past president of the African Students Association.
About SEVEN Talks
Every class of Morehead-Cain Scholars connects with seven others: the three classes ahead, its own, and the three that follow. The idea of SEVEN is to strengthen connections across generations of Morehead-Cains.
The Alumni Forum embodies this spirit through SEVEN Talks—seven alumni and scholars on Saturday, and seven more on Sunday—each sharing seven minutes of wisdom with the Morehead-Cain community.
How to listen
On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on social media @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.
Upon hearing my roommate singing in the shower, I jolted awake, looked at my phone, and my heart sank. I was already late. Somewhere across campus at the foundation, a free breakfast was being served, and I was missing it. I took a moment to mourn for the food that I could have had. And then, as a result, once right afterwards, I put on what I thought was remotely professional, which ended up being a black top, sneakers, leggings, and a blazer—because nothing quite hides chaos quite like a blazer.
So I sprinted from my dorm by the Dean Dome all the way to the foundation, hoping to slip in unnoticed. But as I walked in, I realized breakfast was long gone and everyone was already seated. And as a result, I was late—and not just to one Q&A or panel but the Trailblazers Panel, which was celebrating fifty years of Black Morehead-Cain excellence.
I tried my best to tiptoe in and perform what I have to call the walk of shame. I slid into a chair, head down, trying to disappear into the furniture. But then I heard them—stories that reignited the hope inside my heart.
Judge Karen Stevenson shared how after she completed the Rhodes scholarship, she took a twelve-year break before going down the path to law school and becoming the federal judge that she is today. Dr. Robin Hadley shared about her unconventional path to both the Morehead-Cain and the Rhodes scholarship and how she persevered after being told no—and her famous line of wisdom, which I have quoted to so many, about how backing up isn’t giving up.
Each story cracked open something inside of me, as these women, these giants, weren’t talking about polished success stories. They were talking about detours, pauses, and rejections. I felt my embarrassment dissolve as, in that room, I wasn’t an imposter who showed up late. I felt as though I had arrived right on time.
Later that day at lunch with British alumnus Joel Samakula, I was there spilling out all of my fears, like confessions about paths that felt too narrow and how the dream that I once had now felt impossible without perfect credentials. I told him about what I hadn’t realized at the time were my plans to settle for less. He listened quietly, and his facial expression morphed from our previous playful banter to a kind yet stern expression. He then looked me in the eye and said, with disarming honesty, “This isn’t good enough. You have to pick something. Forget credentials for a moment. What do you want?”
We discussed options, and then we ended with him teaching me the Serenity Prayer. And the line that stayed with me was this: “the courage to change the things I can.”
Those words landed hard because somewhere along the way, I’d lost that courage. Part of me longed for the safe route, the one that was easy and promised security and stability, the one that forced me to remain small.
But sitting in that room, surrounded by five decades of Black Morehead-Cain excellence, something shifted. I realized that I had been operating from scarcity, believing that I had already used up my portion of luck—that as a Black woman from a low socioeconomic background who wasn’t meant to amount to much, who had been told in school several times that she was more likely to end up in prison or pregnant than to go to university, that I had achieved more than enough.
But these stories challenged that lie. They forced me to confront the truth that there’s so much more out there, and I just had to have the courage to reach out and grab it. In the words of Marianne Williamson, I realized that my playing small does not serve the world. How dare I not walk in their same audacity?
Sir Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen further, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants.” That weekend, I realized that my hopes and dreams weren’t reckless and wasted pursuits. They’re reverence. They honored the people that made my leap possible. I wasn’t just standing on their shoulders either. I was being held by them. Their risks made mine possible, and their leaps gave me ground to land upon. They were handing over the flame to me. How dare I not walk down that same path, honoring their legacy, chasing my dream, walking with audacity down the path less traveled?
The courage to risk it all for something that seems impossible is one that I recognize in my parents, as I never truly knew my father. And this was not because he was absent but because multiple sclerosis stole him piece by piece before I was old enough to understand. As a child, our time together was often quiet. But as I grew older, I would talk endlessly about school, about the dreams I had, the burdens on my heart, just hoping that he would respond, hoping that he would finally say something. I’d watch him try, see the words form in his mind, but never quite make it out. His mind was strong, but his body would just continuously betray him. And as a result, he would tear up, and I would soon follow.
You see, my father had immigrated to the United Kingdom from Nigeria with my mother solely because he had been awarded a scholarship to pursue his degree. When he passed, I mourned not just him but everything that could have been—the scholarship that he had earned, the dreams that he wanted to accomplish, and just everything that he could no longer chase. And somewhere in that grief came a chilling thought: this could happen to me. And as a result, that fear made me live as though there was some invisible timer just clicking and clicking in the background. And as a result, I chased every single opportunity, afraid to waste even a second.
Ironically, it was that very same drive, the risk-averse kind, that led me here to being awarded the Morehead-Cain scholarship and the chance to study abroad, the chance to finish what he had started. When I got the news, I imagined myself by his bedside table, and I wonder what he would say to me. In my mind, despite never once hearing his voice, I heard him clearly say, “Go, daughter, go. Accomplish what I couldn’t. Achieve the dream that I wish I could have.”
When I thought of him then, I didn’t see the hospital bed or the feeding tubes or the IVs. I saw a light—gentle, steady, and just waiting. It felt as if he had placed it into my hands, trusting me to carry what he had started.
And then there’s my mother, the giant who, with little formal education, followed the love of her life across the world, chasing his dream and the hope of a better life. When that dream shattered, she carried us through the wreckage whilst watching her husband disappear—eighty-hour weeks, rebuilding her faith and hope through fatigue. And as a result, everything that I am and ever will be is because of her.
That weekend was a homecoming to my audacious self. Sitting at the forum, surrounded by stories of those who would carry dreams larger than their lifetimes, I realized that that light had never just belonged to me alone. It was shared, multiplied, and passed forward. It reminded me that courage is contagious and that community isn’t just who catches you when you fall; it’s who dares you to leap higher.
I no longer wake up afraid of running out of time, but I wake up anchored in purpose, grounded in the Serenity Prayer: courage to change what I can, peace for what I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Someone once told me that the best response to advice is action, and the proof of knowledge is application. So, Joel, I’ve decided not to give up. I’ve decided to walk toward medical school, even though the path as an international student seems impossible. And I’ve decided to trust that if I just take that leap, that God and the communities around me will catch me.
To the trailblazers who came before me, thank you for handing me the flame. To my fellow scholars, remember that when you feel small, when you feel behind, when you feel like you’re falling, look around. You are held by giants. So take the risk—not because you’re fearless but because you are held, not because you have it all together but because you don’t have to. Because when you’re held by giants, you can afford to leap.
How dare you not walk in that same audacity?
Thank you.