MY STRENGTH AND MY COURAGE COME FROM MY LIFE!

Good day, friends. Not enemies—today I want to speak only and simply to my dear, dear, dear friends.
So many people wonder how I became so strong.
Life began testing me when I was three or four years old. Not a single day went by without my mother—if someone like that can truly be called a real mother—showering me with insults, foul language, and blows to my head. Punches, more or less violent, came my way even though I had not uttered a single word.
That was who she was. She had been designed by God to make me accomplish everything dictated by Him.
At the age of seven, while children my age were playing, I had to go and sew for a dressmaker who was no less cruel than my mother. Every day she would land a punch on my head because I always forgot to thread the shortest needle.
Then, then, then… what can I say? I was sent to live with an aunt who could not have been dirtier than she was. I stayed there for an entire year so that I could finish compulsory school before joining my parents in Switzerland.
Meanwhile, I became infested with lice—so many that it almost seemed as if they had sucked all the blood out of me. I was so pale that anyone should have noticed I was unwell. But no one noticed anything.
After moving to Switzerland, I became even more of a slave and continued to be mistreated, always and only by my mother. My father was kind, but he never said a word. I eventually came to feel as though I were fatherless. Being kind is good, but it is of no use if you are not also just. Yet that, too, was part of the plan God had written for me.
I have never, never, never—not even once—blamed either of them for my suffering. They were simply the way they were.
Then I became the nanny for my three-year-old brother. I was only ten, yet I had to make sure everything in the family ran smoothly. Shopping, housework, and if even the smallest thing was not done exactly as my mother wanted, she would pin me into a corner and, with kicks and punches, vent her frustration and exhaustion, since she left home at 6:30 every morning and returned at the same time in the evening.
Then God saved me by making me attend school in Switzerland, which I loved dearly. At last I had escaped a neglected, superficial, and painful environment and entered one that was more suitable for my age.
That was where my rebellion began. I almost never did exactly what my teachers told me. I followed my own path, yet I always achieved excellent academic results. At least that is what my teachers told me, but I never, ever believed them.
Finally, I was able to open my mouth after so many years in which I could not speak.
As the years passed, little changed within my family. I always had to remain silent because I was a girl, while my brothers were allowed to do whatever they wanted. I was always confined to the house until, at the age of fourteen, I started working as a sales assistant in a supermarket.
There, a whole new world opened up before me—one I will never forget. There God blessed me with great satisfaction. I was deeply appreciated at work because I carried it out with passion and honesty, just as I have always done.
Then I met my ex-husband. Yes, yes, yes—my ex. He left me because he never accepted this wonderful gift of mine.
That was the beginning of another hell, an even worse one—from the frying pan into the fire. The humiliation seemed endless. Humiliation, beatings, everything meant to make me feel worthless, even though I worked, worked, and worked.
For years I worked eighteen to twenty hours a day, yet it always seemed as though I never did enough. I took care of everything, as I always have: my family, the household, and the company that I had wanted to create, which produced excellent results. Yet I was never valued.
But now, enough.
I do not want to continue, even though I could say much more. This was only one chapter of my life.
This is how God wrote His plan for me. This is how He forged me and prepared me for this moment.
Now I apologize if I have saddened or bored you, but I felt I should share this because I can sense your thoughts—they reach me. Many people wonder, “How can she have so much courage?”
Think about this whenever you find yourselves complaining about nothing. Life is, and always will be, an extraordinary gift.
Thank you for your kind attention.

P.S. In case it was not already clear, I have known tremendous suffering. That is why I have always stood on the side of the last, the forgotten, and the weakest.