Normal kids have a childhood with a loving mom and dad. That's at least the fairy tale I always believed in anyway.

I didn't grow up in a normal home with a normal childhood. It wasn't the type of home that was filled with love and care. There were three of us: my little brother, my older sister, and me. Until I was eight years old, I was beaten and starved by my parents. My mother never really wanted me. She never hugged or snuggled me. She never told me she loved me or showed me she cared. I later found out I was supposed to be aborted and was never wanted from the beginning.Through all of it, I found peace in going to church even though I didn't really know who God was. There was a bus that always stopped at the trailer park I lived in and took people to a Baptist church a couple of miles up the road. My mom wanted me out of her sight, so she didn't care that I went. I hopped on the bus one morning, and I loved it. This was the first time I had heard the Gospel, and I liked the sermons so much, I'd steal the sermon tapes and listen to them at home. The following Sundays, I would swap them for new ones. I waited for Sunday every week, because it was the only thing that gave me hope. The people at church showed me just a little glimmer of love. They told me everything was going to be ok. Still, from my home life, I didn't know that my mother, who never wanted me, would forever shape my life through every bad man she decided to love.

Today, I am a woman who always tries to find the good in everyone even if the only thing that shows is bad. I am a woman who doesn't trust and is always guarded. But when I love, I really love. I am a woman who can't handle being touched, because it brings flashbacks, and it makes me cringe.

If it wasn't for God, I don't honestly think I'd be here now. Sometimes the pain gets so bad that I don't think life is worth it anymore. However, God is continually showing me purpose and what life is about. I am a woman who struggles everyday. I try not to look at the struggles as weaknesses but as something that makes me fight. Because that's always what I have always been, a fighter.