This is Me RAW and Exposed…

So in light of the recent events in my life I have decided I want to get ‘undressed’ and expose myself for who I really I am. I have written in the past about growing up and the things that have happened to me, but I have never gone into complete and utter detail. Many of you may think I am looking for attention, many of you may think I am making it all up. But these are the events that have made me me. These are my life experiences that made me who I am today. Some may think I need to change and I am not all what society expects me to be, some may think what are you talking about you fine, some may think jeepers did that really happen to you? Well this is my full life story, nothing hidden. I am exposing myself for everyone to see. I am writing things down that I am sure not even my husband knows. I can promise you there are a lot more things that happened that I have blocked out of my memory, that my sister or aunt could probably fill in the gaps but these are the events that have moulded me and shaped me, these are the events that have led me to where I am today.

I am writing this and exposing all that I am, so that anybody who knows me or knew me and felt I was not what everyone expects I should be, or thinks I should respond to life’s curve balls differently can understand where I am coming from and how these things have had a role in moulding the person you all know. I would like to add that by no means am I giving excuses for who I am, because I know at a few days short of 30 years old, I still need a lot of work…but after 30 years of ‘fighting’ for yourself for survival, fighting for a break, hanging onto to life sometimes by my nails and trying so hard not to fall into a deep hole. I have been told that there are things that I need to change, that people cannot understand why I react the way I do because it is not ‘normal’ in their eyes, that my feelings are wrong and I should not hurt at certain things. I have been told that people do not understand how a person can just cut their family out of their life, well this is my story, this is my reasons and whoever reads this may not agree with my choices, but the choices I have made I have made because it is the best choice for me. So here goes, be warned this is not for the faint of heart, and its not what many of you are expecting but I need everyone to know…the person who am I am is me…and yes as you will read I was not brought up in the greatest environments or the right role models but considering all that I am pretty proud of who I have become and being moulded for 30 years into this person, a person cannot expect me to change because they are not the same or do not agree with my emotions or the way I react or feel. Circumstances made me this way, and I have done the best at raising myself as I possibly could. Please accept me as I am, faults and all. So here goes my raw and naked story.

So as many of you know my dad was an alcoholic and my mom, well she loved men (and woman) and my dad being an alcoholic did not encourage her faithfulness. My dad although had this faults, adored me and I was his world. He always made sure I came first before alcohol. My mom had an affair with my sisters dad when I was just a little over 2 years old. She left me with my dad and went to live with my soon to be step father. My aunt Michelle, then moved in and helped my dad basically raise me, as we all know alcoholics are not capable of looking after themselves let a lone a 2 year old. Well there were many times where my dad drove with me in his car while under the influence and many times he left me in the local pub or bottle store. I blame it on the alcohol because he would never have done that if not under the influence. So anybody who have alcoholics in their family, know and understand, its not them its the alcohol. Anyway thank goodness Port Shepstone was a small town in those days and every one knew everyone else and my aunt Michelle was called to come and fetch me.

Me and my dad.

Well 2 years past and just before I turned 4 I went to live with my mom and her husband. I recently found out it was purely due to the fact that my dad was paying her child support while I was living with him and then when he was going to stop she decided, she wanted to keep me, for the money. So I moved back with my mother. My brother (10 years older than me, from a different father) also went to stay with her and her new husband. Life was ok for a while, I went to see my dad every weekend and hated going home on a Sunday. A year later give or take a few months we moved to Hillcrest, and the day before I started grade one was probably the day my life took a turn. My step father had a drinking buddy and every Tuesday night they used to go drinking, so Craig, my rapest, did not have to drive home he would sleep over at our house, the night before school started I remember getting up to go to the toilet and when I went back to bed he was waiting in my bed…NAKED…he told me to be quiet and lay down, and that was the start of 3 years of abuse. I remember, while laying there while he touched me and felt me in places NO one had ever touched, looking up at my shelf with all my barbie stuff on and thinking, after he bumped it, I am going to get into so much trouble because my barbie shoes were not neat. I just remember I kept saying to myself don’t forget to fix it before your mom sees. Well when he was done he got up and went to the toilet, I rolled over and cried myself to sleep. Before he left he told me not to tell anyone otherwise he would take me away, and that I wanted him to do this thats why he did it. At a whole six years old I thought this man must be right so I believed him. Well the next morning I got up and got ready for school and went to my first day of school with horrible thoughts running through my head. I got home and yes I had forgotten to fix the shoes and got one massive hiding! My mother pulled everything off the shelf and out of all my cupboards and made me tidy up my room and I got warned if I did not do it her way I would get a hiding and would have to do it again.

This picture is of me when the abuse started.

So this abuse went on every Tuesday night, because this was their drinking night, after about a month of him just touching me and him making me touch him, he started going on top of me and from behind. I am not sure how long each ‘session’ would last but it felt like it would never end, and after each session he would leave R5 next to my bed and say I must buy something nice. At 7 years old I was being paid for sex and I had no clue what was going on.

All while this was going on a lady moved into the flat on the property, then she moved into the house and before long she was sharing a room with my step dad and mother. Yes totally out there but it happened. I always thought my mother never knew about what was happening but one night Craig stayed over when my step father was away, this other woman, and my mother were in the Jacuzzi and he came through, and asked me to join them in the jacuzzi, I said no, so he got into bed and started. I wanted him to stop and tried to scream, he whispered to me no body will ever believe me and  with his hand over my mouth continued to rape me from behind over and over again, when he was done he said here is R10 for the tuck shop, he told me if I ever wanted to see my dad again I best ‘keep quiet’, he went back to my mother and the other woman and joined them in the jacuzzi. What he did not realise was that my sister was in the bed with me and he woke her up when he laid on her. So upon reflection of this night, I realised my mom knew all along what he was doing, and after thinking about future events that happened, I believe she gave him permission to touch me. I don’t know what their deal was but she knew. Two nights later when we were getting ready for bed my sister asked ‘is uncle Craig coming tonight?’ Her dad said no and she said ‘good because when he came into Chantel’s bed the last time he squashed me and I don’t like it’. My step dad then asked me why he was in my bed and I told them. My mother turned around and said she wants proof on video first before she goes to the police so they must wait till the next time he comes to see if he actually did it. My step dad said over his dead body and phoned my dad right away to tell him. This was the night my own dad became to scared to hug me and hold me in fear of me thinking he was going to do the same thing.

When my step dad confronted Craig, he denied the whole thing and told my step dad that on my 21st birthday he would prove he didn’t do it. When I heard my step dad telling my mom telling this I became so fearful. I never wanted to turn 21. Well at least that horrible part of my life was over, in all honesty I owe my life to my sister, things could of turned out so differently if she had not spoken up, I would of just kept quiet and would of continued being abused.

We went to trial and I had to show the judge what he did using puppets, it was not the most comfortable thing to do and I had to do it while Craig was sitting in the room. Well I showed them everything he did to me, and the judge said he believed me but my mom said there had been other men sleeping over so the judge said there was not enough evidence. I am sure you must be asking what about a test to see if my virginity was broken, well they did that and by the grace of God it was still there. I was raped from all angles for 3 years, had not one or two but 3 of his fingers penetrating me on numerous amounts of times and yet he never ever broke it. I believe with all my heart that was God protecting me and keeping pure. So often I think to myself what on earth was God thinking creating me, why am I here? Although I wish I never had any memory of what happened I need to be reminded because I am subsequently reminded of how God protected me and that makes me realise He has got a plan for my life. Well the judge said he could not convict him but suggested I go for counselling. My mother took me once and I don’t know what they said to her, but she obviously did not like it because she said it was a waste of time and I did not need counselling. About 10 years later Craig committed suicide on fathers day and admitted everything in his suicide letter.

This picture is of me just before the abuse stopped.

While I was dealing with being abused sexually, I was also being verbally, physically and emotionally abused by my mother. Don’t get me wrong I fully believe a child should get a hiding from time to time when it is necessary, but slapping a 8 year old through the face with a wooden spoon because I did not make my bed properly, is not called for, or when I did not do something to her expectations getting whatever she could grab in her hand first slapped across my back, through my face, on my leg, I even remember being hit with a whisk because she was making something with it at the time. If our rooms were not her tidy, everything would be pulled out, clothes, books toys, shoes. Everything would be pulled out of the cupboard after I was given 5 of the best and told if I do not clean it up to her tidy I would get another 5. So often my step dad had to stop her from hitting me. I remember when I was 5 or 6, her locking herself and my brother in her room and beating him with the belt and holding a knife to his throat, my step dad had to kick the bedroom door down and pull her off my brother. That night he left home and we didn’t see him again for at least 8 years.

So when I was about 10, my mother and this other woman left my step father to be together. I am not judging anybody if they chose this as their lifestyle, its not my place to judge, but what I believe and what the Bible has taught me it is not right for two woman to have a relationship, and it is certainly not right for young children to hear what they do in the bedroom every night. My mother ran a creche, and was still running it from my step fathers house while the divorce was being finalised, we still had all our stuff at his house and used to sleep on plastic pool chairs at the house the other woman got. This house was on Old main road in Hillcrest right next to the vet (reason for location will come soon). So one day she took my sister and I to the doctors just up the road from my step dads house to have warts burnt off. My sister went first and kept moaning how sore it was. When it was my turn I was to afraid to have it done. My mother kept telling me on the way home I am a baby and my little sister could do but I can’t. When we got back to the creche she told all the kids to laugh at me and call me a baby because I was to scared to have them done.

Because of what had happened to me I was such a fearful scared child and she did not care she encouraged children along with herself to ridicule and laugh at me. I went into my stepdads house wrote her a letter saying I know she doesn’t actually love or want me and I know I am adopted. Typical 9 year old. Well I went and hid under my bed at my step dads and my plan was to wait till he came home, because I was convinced my mother would of been so happy I was gone and not bothered looking for me, then when he got home ask him to phone my dad and get my dad to come and get me. Well she found the note and sent the nanny to find my. I had fallen asleep under the bed and she pulled me out and took me to my mother who was waiting for me with the wooden spoon. I was not going to get another beating when it was her fault I wanted to run away. So I ran up the drive way and she ran after me, thank goodness she had the creche and parents were coming to fetch their kids because she could not chase after me up the road. I ran up to the doctors rooms and stood outside crying. The receptionist came and found me and took me to the doctor. I asked him to burn them off so my mother would not hate me so much, he said he would but had to ask her permission first. I begged him not to phone her because she would beat me up, he said he would make sure she didn’t, the dumb doctor told her where I was and that I was scared she would beat me up. When he put the phone down he said she promised she would not hurt me. Well she didn’t come fetch me, she sent her girlfriend to fetch me 3 hours later and I will never forget her words when she got into the car ‘you are going to wish you were never born my girl’. When we got home she made me strip down and proceeded to hit me 15 times with the belt and as she was doing it kept asking me if I am going to do it again and each time I screamed ‘no’ I got it again because I did not say ‘no mom’ and then again because I did not say ‘no mom I wont do it again’. When she was done she said if I told anybody I could expect to get the same again and worse. That night I felt so sick I could not eat, I remember it was meatballs for dinner and she made me sit in the dark ,even though everyone else had gone to bed, until I had finished every last bit on my plate and if I said I was full she asked me if I want her to take me back to the bedroom for more. A few months later in this same house, my mother decided it was a good idea to wake my sister and I up and tell us we were going to be with the angels. I remember her grabbing my hand and pulling me outside down to the main road and told me when a car comes past I must jump in front of it. I kept trying to pull away but she kept holding on and was waiting for the right moment to throw me into the road. I am not sure if she planned on jumping after me, all I remember is her telling me I must go first and then her and my sister will do it. Thank goodness her girlfriend managed to make her loose her grip so I could run back inside, but this was not the last time she would try to take my life. A few years later she tried to gas us in her car as well.

These hidings along with my rape made me start thinking I was a bad child, it affected my friendships at school, I was so withdrawn and shy that I could not make friends, and if anybody said ‘boo’ to me I broke down crying. I remember my Std 3 (Grade 5) teacher sent me to grade one because he told me I was stupid because I could not get a sum right and I started crying, and said only grade one’s cry for nothing so off I went to grade one. The principle called my parents in and apparently told them I would amount to nothing in life and that I need to grow up and get over the rape. This is what my mother said. I am not so sure looking back how true it was but I believed it. For the next few years I believed I was a nobody and a nothing.

By the time I got to high school my mother and her girlfriend had broken up. About 2 months after that a 22 year old moved in to ‘rent’ a room. It was about a month later that he and my mother 44 years old, were sleeping together and sharing a room. He was a security guard and therefore had a gun. And yes with their fights came her grabbing the gun and coming into my room and threatening to take mine and my sister life along with hers. She also felt it was ok for this guy to walk around naked in front of her two young girls. Well their marriage only lasted 7 months before they got divorced.

Two weeks after he moved out another guy moved in, that lasted 2 months. After he left my mother, my sister and I would be dropped off at home after school without food or electricity connected (because she did not pay the bill so we did not have lights for a year) and she would go and not come back till the next morning. Let me just add the house was in a dangerous part of Botha’s hill, it was just down the road from the Rob Roy Hotel. My dad used to give me pocket money on the weekend for the week and my sister and I used to ‘book’ the squash court for R4 for 30min and then we could use the shower. So I used to used my pocket money for us to go have a shower everyday and would have enough to buy bread for my sister and I. Many times she kept us with her and we had to do our homework in the car outside a pub somewhere and then we would move on and sit in the car while she went to some guys house.

The next incident which happened was not a great experience either. We went to go get her car new tyres after school, she spoke to a guy, his name was George. She got new tyres on the car, (which she did not pay for because we did not have money) that night she dropped us off at home and went out. She came home with George. My sister and I started sleeping in the same bed because we were both scared to sleep on our own when my mother left us in the house by ourselves, so that night my sister was in my bed. I woke up to them having a good old go at it. The next thing I heard her tell him which was my room ( I was 15) George came into the room and tried to wake me up. He was naked and knelt beside the bed and started touching me in my pants, and licking my face. I tried to roll over to face my sister but he grabbed me and held me down and told me to get up and go to my mothers room. Thats when my sister woke up and asked me in her dozy state whats wrong. He then got up and walked out, I heard him tell my mom my sister was waking up, she said sorry. They went back to the bedroom and carried on. The next morning he was gone when we got up. I told my mother what he did and she said I am lying just like I was lying about Craig raping me and that I was just looking for attention. My sister also told her he came into the room and she said fine she will ask him. We went to the tyre shop and she told us to wait in the car, she came back and said ‘he said he didn’t do anything and you just don’t want to see me happy do you Chantel.’ So again I was a liar and was wrong. That night we sat in the car outside what I presume was his house so they could carry on doing what they needed to do so my mother could ‘pay’ for the tyres. Obviously I was supposed to be the rest of the payment the night before until my sister woke up and threw a spanner in the works.

When I was in high school my mother organised a carnival for the school, and proceeded to steal all the money they made from it and told them they ran at a lose, and therefore removed me after 2 terms from the school. This was probably the only thing she ever did right for me but she put me into a Christian school, here we were left at school till 8pm at night, sometimes later sitting in the car park. Many times the same thing happened when I was at the other school and then when she picked me up gave me a hiding because she said I was not waiting for her when she came to fetch me after school. This was the biggest lie because I had been in the same spot waiting from as soon as the bell went. But I was a liar and in the wrong. So I got used to it and got used to being left at the school. Then I stupidly passed a comment to one of the teachers that I did not have dinner, breakfast or lunch. They then asked my sister and she confirmed it. They then ordered us toasted sandwiches from the tuck shop which I refused to eat because it would be charge to the school account and then my dad would see and looking back now I know my dad would not have minded, but at the time I was so scared he would ask my mom why and we were threatened not to tell our fathers anything. She was then called into the principles office and she used some choice language and we got kicked out. My sisters dad went to the school and promised them my mother would have nothing to do with fees or dealing with the teachers if my sister could stay. I went to live with my dad. My life changed for the better after this. I hardly saw my mother. Her excuse every weekend was she didn’t have money for petrol to come fetch me so I saw her very little. I was so glad that happened because finally I was safe with my dad.

A year later she went overseas and has never been back. I did have contact with her for a few years and even went to visit but that is another paragraph later on.

My dad lived with my grandparents and so I lived with them too. I become so confident in myself I grew into a girl who danced for Jesus, wrote poetry for Jesus, and for the first time in my life had a stable home and some one who adored and loved me all the time, I had breakfast lunch and dinner every night and lights and clean water to bath. With all the goings on in my life my dad had an implant to help him to stop drinking so by this time he had been sober for at least 6 years.

When I was in std 8 my dad met another woman and moved in with her in Waterfall. The idea was for me to finish the year and then move with them. Well a very unfortunate thing happened to my gran the night after I moved out she had very bad stroke and my grandfather found her in my room. He blamed me for her being so bad and said if I never left she wouldn’t have had the stroke. He became so bitter and angry towards me and nothing I did would change his mind. Well my dads new wife, oh yes they got married, was a frail care nurse and we all moved back to the Bluff so she could look after my gran. A few months after living with her she started nagging my dad to have some wine with her. I asked her not to ask him to drink and she told me to mind my own business. Well that first sip was the start of my dads downward spiral, not only did she get him into drinking again, but she also got him to start smoking dagga… She had 2 young boys and nothing I did was right. She started locking food away from me in her bedroom cupboard and only just before my dad got home would she take it out so he didn’t know. She would not let him pay for my matric dance stuff and only let him pay for my dress, she told him she could do my hair and make up because it was a waste of money. What did my dad know about girls stuff he listened to her. My aunt from England sent me money to have my hair and nails and make up done, I didn’t even get ready at home because she told him they had a meeting at her sons school, which conveniently was not for his grade that night when they arrived.

She also started telling my dad that she had seen me smoking and drinking on the streets and that I was bunking school and she heard me talking on the phone about having sex with boys after school. I was not only the furtherest girl from any boy wanting to have sex with me but I was NOT that girl. I was the head girl of a predominantly afrikaans school where I can’t speak a word of it. The night I was announced as head girl, my dad was not there because she told him the prize giving was cancelled. When I phoned to tell him he asked where I was and she kept to it that I had told her it was cancelled. My greatest achievement and my dad was not even there to see me receive it.

This picture is of me in my Matric year

One day my dad came home early after I had finished school and when he went to the room he couldn’t get into his cupboard, when she got home from fetching her boys he asked why it was locked and she tried to make all these stories and told him to sit down and have a drink and she will get what he needs, well he would have non of it and demanded the key. The next thing that happened I don’t think I will ever get out of my mind. He opened the cupboard and found every biscuit, fruit and fruit juice from the grocery shop he had done in the cupboard. He asked her why and she said because she does not want me eating her boys food for their lunch. My dad lost it…he had never laid a hand on me or anybody for that matter. But her dragged her out the house by her hair and told her to get out! Well she managed to get her to forgive her and they sorted their stuff out but she just got worse towards me. Told my dad lies about me and he believed them, I could do nothing right. So I moved out. I moved in with a great family who let me rent a room. Well I lived there for a year, during this time I was still in touch with my mother and I loved her I could not hate her or blame her for what happened growing up, it was all my fault, well thats what she made me believe.

Her friends over there paid for me to go visit at the end of my first year out of school. I went and there I saw the truth, but I still tried to deny it. But before I carry on my mom told us when I was 14 she had a brain tumour and that she did not have long to live, by the time she left to go live in America, the cancer had spread to her lungs as well. STUPIDLY I still believed her, 6 years later I still believed she had cancer. So while I was there she would be so drugged up most of the days and then scream and yell at me and tell me I am spoilt and a brat and then the next day tell me she is in pain because of the brain tumour and the pain meds made her funny. Well what she doesn’t realise is I saw the heroin and cocaine she was taking. My mother was a drug addict. But I still loved her and gave her the benefit of the doubt.

When I left to go overseas my dad eventually left his wife for good, she went to my grandfather and told him that my dad and I were having sex and that she cannot deal with it anymore and she is leaving him. These pornographic sex driven people just kept following me in life!

Well I came home and life went on, I was independent and living on my own, I moved to Westville when I started working for my AMAZING church. There grew from strength to strength and they helped me overcome so much, I was there for 3 years and my dad asked me to go and work with him, in the meantime he had gotten a divorce but was still as deep as ever into the alcohol. I was there for 2 months, then the most tragic thing in my life happened, my dad got diagnosed with bile duct cancer, the rarest cancer there is and at the time only 2% of the world population had been diagnosed with it. It is the biggest stomach operation next to a liver transplant. He went in for an operation 1 week after being diagnosed and 2 weeks after the operation I lost him forever. My heart was broken. The one person who loved me for me, unconditionally and more than anything else in the world had died. He was my best friend and knew me better than I knew myself. He helped me to become someone good enough to be head girl, he helped me become a strong independent woman. He helped me become the woman Michael fell in love with and chose to spend the rest of his life with.

Well I was so heartbroken and it has not gotten easier. 6 years later and it still hurts when I think about him being gone and hurts even more knowing he is not here to be a granddad to Jasmine. It breaks my heart that my little girl is going to miss out on his love. His unwavering, unconditional, unchanging love. I know I am not the first person to loose a father, but that does not make the pain any less.

Well just after my dad died I decided to sell his house and all his stuff to put in storage incase I wanted to use it one day, well my mother called me and told me her and her boyfriend wanted to move back to South Africa. I told asked her where she was going to stay, and she said in my dads house because that was my dads last dying wish. I said I am selling it as it is too painful for me to keep and that I would keep his bed but everything else I am putting in storage until I get a bigger place. She proceeded to tell me I am a selfish little bitch and I am spoilt and my father told her what he wanted me to do with everything and that he would be disgusted in me and then told me that I have the devil living in me. I then told her to please leave me alone and her reply was, when you give me back every cent I ever spent on you I will leave you alone. I told her I never wanted to speak to her again and that was the end of my relationship with her. I had been verbally and emotionally abused by her for the last time. 3 years ago all this hatred and not dealing with the rape or my dads death made me have a ‘nearly’ breakdown. I went to see a psychologist and she helped me move past this hurt and forgive my mother. I wrote her a letter and told her I forgive her for all the above, but I am not able, as much as I have tried to forget. I forgive her but I do not want to have a relationship with her, as I have moved on and past all that and every time I let her back in she hurt me again. I know I know Jesus forgives us over and over again and again and again and he keeps forgiving us, but He is God. I am not sure emotionally I could deal with the heart ache or hurt again. So I told her this and honestly feel like I have forgiven her. Don’t get me wrong the scares for the hurt are still there and I am still trying to overcome the pain and hurt I had to go through, the rapes and things I was exposed to will always be in my mind and those things somehow creep into my mind and start to take control. Those thoughts of worthless ness and not belonging take over. Every time someone hurts me emotinonally in a similar way to what my mother did I break down worse than the time before.

So the reason I am writing this is not for your sympathy but for you to understand me. Whether you knew me in school or know me know, these situations from the very day I was born are what have made me the person I am today. Yes I am emotional, yes I am shy, yes I may not hug or kiss you hello, but that does not make me any less worthy of your understanding, your acceptance or your friendship. I may not respond to hurts the way you do, but that does not make me a bad person, that does not make me ‘messed up’ I am who I am and if I could of chosen a different path to mould me trust me I would of.

I am asking you, someone I knew in the past, someone I know today and have a relationship with or someone I may meet in the future, to accept me for me, to love me for me and to understand I do not come from your normal background and up bringing, I do not come from your normal family, I have been broken over and over again and I keep getting up and trying again. I am doing the best I can with what I have been given. So I ask you today to understand me and who and I am and why I am like I am.

I just thank the Lord I did not land up a prostitute, drug addict dead in a ditch somewhere, because with the above childhood, thats the direction I should of gone, but I made the choice to fight for what I deserved, I deserved to be loved as a child for who I was, I deserved to have TWO parents who had my best interests at heart. I deserve now to be given the opportunity to be Chantel, broken bruised and battered, but here, alive and wanting to make the best out of a horrible past and give my little girl the best life possible. Accept me as I am, I am going to make mistakes, maybe a few more than your average person because lets face it I have not had the best role models to go on, but I am giving this thing called life the best I can and thats all I can do. For 23 years I was told I was useless, I was abused verbally, physically, sexually and emotionally and all I ask if you know is allow me to be me. Don’t try to fix what you think is broken because what you might think is a broken and useless and needs fixing some else thinks is beautiful and perfect and is great just like that. We all have our opinions about things in life and thats life but if we don’t agree with something all we can do is support that person and show them love because forcing our beliefs and expectations on them will only push them away.

Me and my precious princess. My second chance to prove I was not a mistake.

This is my gift from God to have a second chance to a happy life. This little girl is my chance to prove I can do something right. I now know my purpose is to be her mom and be the best possible mom I can be to her. To protect her from physical, emotional, verbal and every other form of abuse. To raise her up to be confident in herself, to love herself and be proud of herself, to love her for her, faults and all. My purpose its to raise this little world changer. This little world changer has given me a second chance at a happy, laughter filled life and today I am making the decision to pack away the tears and to look to a future that is filled with happiness and laughter. No more will I allow my emotions to control me nor will I allow words of anybody I know cut me as much as I have let them in the past. The JOY of the Lord is my strength and it is in HIM that I find my worth and value, not in man, but in HIM. My father my everlasting God, my God who helped me become who I am today.