Who'z Dat Lady?

I was born and raised in New Bern, North Carolina to Bernis Lee Henderson and Johnnie Henderson.I  saw my dad for the first time in person when he came to visit my mother. He didn’t go into the house because my mother was sitting in her living room with another man. I remember as I was pulling on my dad I asked him for some money and he said, "Don't worry I’m gonna leave you some money,” and as he walked away I walked with him and I stood on the corner watching him walk away until I could no longer see him and the next day he was dead. I remember going to his funeral and everyone was crying and grieving but I couldn't cry, I couldn't cry, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't cry.

I believe I stayed on that corner looking for my dad to come back for a long time. I sought my dad in men. My first relationship was with a man who was twenty-two and I was fourteen years old. He was very verbally, physically, mentally, and sexually abusive, but I thought that was love, because after he would beat me up, after he would take my body even when I would fight him off, after he called me all kinds of names, after he had many affairs, he would what I thought make love to me and everything would be ok again. This man taught me how to hate myself, he taught me how to criticize myself, he taught me that love hurts and that was the journey I was on from fourteen years old until I was thirty.

Wow.

I hated myself for so long that having children by him and other men that came along scared me a lot becauseI didn't have a clue how to love these children and I became the abuser and the state took my children because I latched on to alcohol and drugs. I tried to be the mother these children needed but cocaine became my best friend, my lover, and my voice to tell you how I felt with venom attached to it. Cocaine turned on me because first it was what cocaine was doing for me and I never realized when the roles reversed because in the end it turn into what I can do for cocaine. I destroyed my children lives and I destroyed my own life. But when I came to the end of my rope, when I could no longer get high, when I could no longer stay stopped on my own, it was if God said, "that's enough"

I remember being in the crack house waiting for another hit but for some reason for the first time I got up off the bed I was on that was on the floor and remember putting on two pairs of pants because I was very small and I put on a sweat shirt which was big enough for three or more people and as I walked to the mirror that was hanging on the wall, and I looked at myself for the first time what I saw looking back at me was death. I looked like a skeleton, my hair was matted to my head, my teeth were broken and rotted. I was just a shell of a person and I remember putting a scarf on my head, I threw the hoody over my head and I walked out of the crack house. It was like I got knocked off my getting-high horse and made an intelligent decision: I called my youngest daughter’s father and I went and stayed with them until a bed came available for me at the Alexandria detox and I went into that detox feeling disgusted, empty, hurt, angry, alone, and scared.

I remember going to my first AA meeting ever in my life while in that detox and when it was my turn to share or speak I remember telling the group "I lost my children and may never get them back” after I shared that, a man whom I’d never seen before and didn't know, said to me, "You didn't lose your children, you gave them away. When you lose something you can get that back but you gave them away”. That blew me away, the flood gate of tears came streaming down my face, I couldn't stop the tears, I couldn't stop the pain I was feeling, however, that was my break through, that set me on my journey in recovery, that set me on my journey in deliverance, that set me on my journey of being set-free and forgiving myself and it also set me on the journey of being honest and truthful to myself in a loving way. I have been blessed to walk this recovery journey of 25 years one day at a time and it’s all by the grace of God and the love I have for myself I have today.

Recovery helped me to go back and get that little girl I left on the corner looking for her dad and embrace her, and comfort her because I’m showing her through my journey and the love I have for the both of us we will get through the good, the bad, and the not so good times together.

I was called into ministry in 2016 by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and continue to this day. I enjoy helping women go through their transition and transformation on their journey to freedom from active addiction and come into who God has called them to be and walk into who they are called to be in the Lord. “After all, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us” (Philippians 4:13).