Kassi Pontious - Youre Strong Enough: Understanding the Purpose of Life - The Ultimate Quest

By

Kassi L. Pontious

Highland, Utah

YOURE STRONG ENOUGH

Copyright 2013 by Kassi L. Pontious
www.kassipontious.com

5406 W 11000 N Suite 103-410
Highland, UT 84003

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as for treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Scripture quotations used in this book are from the Authorized King James Version (AKJV) 1979 and the Pearl of Great Price; both are in the public domain.

Book Design by Expert Subjects, LLC
Interior Design by Steven James Catizone
Editing by Gail Lennon

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013941978

Youre Strong Enough Color Version
ISBN-10: 098954270X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9895427-0-8

Youre Strong Enough B/W Version
ISBN-10: 0989542718
ISBN-13: 978-0-9895427-1-5

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition: July 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

I want to thank my husband Dave for all his support and encouragement on this endeavor.

I want to thank my Heavenly Father for the inspiration and insights in developing this work to assist the youth in finding the truths of why they are here on Earth.

I also want to thank those that assisted me in completing this work, namely my editors, designer Steven James Catizone and family and friends.

W e are all on a quest here on Earth to find out who we are and what were made of. As a result, we will encounter many hardships during our life. Some hardships will seem like small hills, while others will appear to be huge mountains. Id like to share with you one of the most difficult mountains I had to climb to remove myself from an unhealthy and dangerous situation.

As the eleventh of twelve children, I never felt part of a family. My parents got a divorce when I was four years old. My father stayed in California and my mother took the youngest eight of us to Utah, where her parents lived. My mom felt so out of control because of the divorce that there was constant fighting over cleanliness, our personal direction and getting back at my dad by using us as pawns.

After the divorce my mom pushed each of her children into sports to help them stay out of trouble. I personally started playing tennis in Provo, Utah at age ten. I became very good extremely fast so my mom moved me down to California to train with the best coaches.

In California, I lived with three different families (not knowing any of them) and went to two different schools. After a year of training, my mom moved out to be with me. Tennis went from being enjoyable to being a living hell because my mom demanded perfection from me. I got screamed at constantly and sometimes hit if I lost a match. As a result of my mothers pressure and her abuse towards me, I felt that I had no other option except to leave this world. Fortunately, through divine intervention, my mind was changed. A couple of months later, I still felt I had to do something to save myself from this hell. So, at age fourteen, I ran away from home.

After the year my mom moved out to California to watch me train to be a professional tennis player, we soon moved back home to Utah. I decided that I was sick of playing tennis because of all the pain I had to deal with from my mothers abuse. During those three months of summer, my mom did everything she could to get me to play tennis again, including, visiting with a leader from my church.

This leader was a world-class athlete. Therefore, my mother thought he could help change my mind and I would continue to play tennis. Her plan backfired. He asked what I wanted to do with my life and I told him I wanted to live with my dad. As soon as I told my mom I wanted to live with my dad, the fighting started up again.

One morning while I was eating breakfast, my mother started going at me again. She rehashed all that she had done for me and how ungrateful I was being. She yelled at me for about an hour. I just sat there and took it because I was soft-spoken, peaceful, non-contentious and non-argumentative.

After an hour of listening to her telling me what an ungrateful child I was for not playing tennis anymore, I tried to leave but my mother blocked the way. Finally, I said, Excuse me. Im trying to leave.

My mother responded, Theres no way youre leaving! Im not done talking to you.

I said, Well I need to leave because all youre doing is screaming at me and I need a break.

She replied, There is no way you are leaving.

So I barely pushed her hip so I could get by her. Thats when my mother grabbed my hair and threw me on the ground. After trying for ten minutes of struggling to get her off of me and stop pulling my hair, I finally pushed her off.

For a moment it was quiet, until my mother stood up and started screaming at me again. As I watched her yell at me, I saw in her eyes that nothing would ever change. I knew in that moment that she was out-of-control and it was only going to get worse. I felt in my gut that if I stayed, something bad would happen. So, I took off and started walking down our street.

A million thoughts went through my mind about what had just happened. Realizing the emotional trauma I just went through caused my hands to shake. Then I noticed in the corner of my eye my moms car pull up beside me. She rolled down the window and said, Why dont you get in the car and we will go get something to eat and talk? My mom knew that I loved going out to eat and she knew that would be a huge temptation for me. For a moment I considered it, but then something inside of me more powerful than Id ever felt before, said with a loud voice, RUN!

I ran as fast as I could. As I was running, a voice inside of me said again, Go over to that church building. Once I arrived at the church building, I started checking all the doors to see if any of them were unlocked. No luck. My heart was pounding and I was so scared. I was afraid my mother would catch me before I could get inside. As I was checking all the doors again, my mom drove around the corner of the building and looked right at me. Then, slowly, she continued to drive forward as if she had not seen me at all. As I stood there in awe, someone came out of the church door and I was able to squeeze inside.