From Darkness to Light

"I was born in 1965 to Alcoholic parents. I never brought friends home because I never knew the situation into which I was walking. From the age of seven to nine, I was molested by a farm hand. I remember early on being mad at God. “If God loved me, then He wouldn’t have given me this life,” I thought.

At the age of thirteen, I first smoked weed. My senior year of high school, I dropped out and started using Cocaine. For the next thirty-five years, I continued to abuse drugs on and off. During my second marriage, my husband beat me beyond recognition; it was so bad that my own father-in-law did not recognize me when I stood one foot away. That was 1999.

Despite the abuse, once he was released from prison, we continued to live together. In 2012, he left me alone and disabled in a wheel chair. I spiraled into severe drug abuse. I have no conscious memory of this, but on August 12th 2012, I set myself on fire. My daughter found me and put me out. The damage was so severe that I wasn’t expected to live, but God had other plans.

In December of 2019, I spent Christmas alone in my bed - no one called and my daughters had me blocked. My addiction had left me completely alone. Then I found Safe Haven. While there, I finally realized that Jesus did love me and wanted to help me, but that I had been resisting him the whole time. My life didn’t change overnight, but I began to experience more and more small changes as I surrendered to God. I began to have hope for my future and a desire to live my life for more than myself. I began to take ownership for the mistakes I had made and make repairs with the people I had harmed.

Today, I am proud to say that I am sober and am enjoying being involved in my grandchildren’s lives. God truly can bring healing to any situation." - Charlene Henderson, Residential Program Graduate