Carrie Yost's life was anything but slow. With seven kids having countless events and her other activities such as photography, coaching track and field, city council board member, church callings slowing down was never an option.

However, all of that came to a screeching halt.

Yost, while on a family trip, instead of enjoying herself, was having pain in her stomach and knew something was wrong. She called a gastroenterologist but couldn't get an appointment for four months.

"It rattled my whole life. I had to quit basically everything that I was involved in at the time," Yost said.

She was later diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis, and for two weeks she was sleeping on a pad on her bathroom floor.

In that time, when she was at her lowest lying on the bathroom floor, she said a prayer and that prayer changed her life as she knew it.

"I had this gloom over my world and I didn't recognize it as depression at the time," Yost said. "Music was just this light that went off in my head. Once it was introduced to me I was able to cope with what was happening in my life because of the music."

Yost, who currently resides in Bancroft, was never supposed to be a songwriter.

Growing up in Marsh Valley, Yost was an athlete, not a songbird.

Whether it was on the track, with a basketball in her hands or on the soccer field, Yost's life was sports. When she got to high school she excelled on the track and earned a full ride scholarship in the heptathlon to attend Utah State University.

After her college career with the Aggies she moved to Bancroft with her family and was enjoying the small town farm life until illness had other plans and she traded her medals and school records for music.

"I ran track, I played basketball, I was a soccer player. Anybody in southeast Idaho knew Carrie," Yost said. "That would be what people knew before, never about music. It's a totally different path that I didn't expect to be on in my 40s."

That path ignited a desire and passion for music, however she had no idea how to pursue it.

"I had major imposter syndrome because I didn't know what I didn't know," she said. "It took me a little longer to go public with it than it should have because I was fearful of being in a room of musicians who could sniff out an imposter."

After getting over the fear, Yost proved she was no imposter.

She went back to that night in the bathroom and the prayer she said when she was at her lowest. Still recovering, she wrote down that prayer and turned it into a song titled "Learn in the Dark."

"I had been speaking to God during that time," Yost said. "I couldn't feel the presence of God at that time. I was so frustrated that I was so sick and I felt completely alone in it."

The song reminded her that the pain and suffering was only temporary.

"I had recognized that just because I couldn't feel Him at that point didn't mean that I hadn't ever felt His presence in my life," she said. "I would still trust Him because there are some things we all have to learn in the dark."

Yost has turned music into more than just a hobby. She has written, co-written or performed 31 singles and every song carries a message to help people in their moments of darkness.

"To be able to write in poetic forms something that could potentially help somebody else see their own darkness was very motivating for me to do it," Yost said. "Because if I could put out my feelings in a way that could touch anybody else's heart and not just my own, it made it worthwhile."

Yost's life was turned upside down, halting her family activities and forcing her to slow down. Instead of using that as an excuse she turned it into an opportunity to gain a new passion, and that passion has blossomed into a music career with a message to help others.

"It's remarkable the miracles that happen when you have God on your side," Yost said. "It should never have happened the way that it has and there have been massive amounts of miracles because I just told God that I would write the messages He wanted me to write."