The Covering

Seeing Rosie M. Hill today, you might be surprised at her painful beginnings. Now confidently carrying descriptors such as wife, mother, college graduate, neurodiagnostic technologist, author, co-founder of the Fruit of Forgiveness Ministry, and national speaker, Rosie once suffered under the weight of labels such as abuse victim, high school dropout, unwed mother, and two-time divorcee. So what led her from victim to victor?

Rosie's personal memoir, The Covering: A True Journey, describes her search for answers and reveals the deep truths she discovered. Her journey may have begun with the question, "Why me?" But it eventually expanded to include all of humanity-asking simply, "Why?"

Our enemy, she learned, is ignorance. We are all deceived; and while some ignorance is personal, some is universal. Not content to find only the personal answers for her own life, Rosie sought long and hard to find the universal answers that offer life to everyone. So, where does this harmful ignorance stem from? How does it affect us? How do we combat it?

As a child, Rosie suffered abuse. But what kept her in bondage was her ignorance-layers of deceit that weighed her down and covered up the truth. We all suffer under the weight of these false coverings, and our freedom lies in discovering them and removing them, one by one. The point is not to be uncovered, but to exchange our false coverings with the one true covering given by God, a covering that offers life rather than death.

Whatever obstacles you face-abuse, discrimination, loss, or low self-esteem-there is a way through them. By sharing her own story, Rosie reveals the path we all can follow toward truth and a life lived with joy. Her story inspires the courage to hope for change and step out in faith on our own journey.

Encouraged by a friend to write a book about her life story, Rosie declares, "After all was said, done, and written down, the writing healed my insides. That's what counts, right? What's on the inside? Mine is more than a story of innocence lost and wisdom found. It's more than finding things aren't always what they seem. It's living alongside what a child is told in spite of what she knows. In this case, it's what's on the outside that counts most of all."

Shakespeare once wrote, "Tell the truth and shame the devil." But Rosie discovered an even deeper wisdom: learn the truth and beat the devil. The Covering shines a light on the God-guided path from victim to victor.

Through tenacity, I know that what happened to me was not accidental-was not coincidental, but providential. I was born to tell the story.