No Longer Bound: My Voice My Freedom

© 2015 Airyka Edwards. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

No Content in this Book is intended to discredit Religion of any kind, nor any Person of any Race.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/26/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5858-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5859-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5864-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014922257

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

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.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Contents

Dedication

Reviews What People Are Saying!

Acknowledgements and Special Thanks

Words of Encouragement

Acronyms

Simple Introduction

Chapter One: My Birth

Chapter Two: My History

Chapter Three: From Home To Home

Chapter Four: The Good My Mom Did

Chapter Five: My Life In Texas

Chapter Six: My Life With Tony

Chapter Seven: When I Said I Do

Chapter Eight: Germany

Chapter Nine: Louisiana – Part I

Chapter Ten: Our Tour to Louisiana—Part II

Chapter Eleven: Our Transition To Missouri

Chapter Twelve: My Angels

Chapter Thirteen: Our Transition To Missouri Part II

Chapter Fourteen: My Purpose

Dedication

I’d now like to humbly thank my husband, Brett for giving me twenty plus years of your life. You are my true soul mate, my friend and my biggest supporter. I know people believed that we wouldn’t make it, because we were from totally different backgrounds and yet, we have so much in common. Sweetheart you still intrigue me! You make life interesting every day. Thank you for the patience through the years that no one else could have had with me. Thank you for being my tranquility, my peacefulness when life gave me a rough ride. Thanks for drying my tears when I needed you most. Thanks for taking my children and treating them as your own all these years. Thank you for all the sacrifices you’ve made for our family and for me. Through all of our ups and downs you still……..and now I want you to know, honey I still……..Love you…..

Reviews

What People Are Saying!

Airyka Edwards No Longer Bound shares her own modern day Horatio Alger climb of rags to middle class riches and respectability. Born into a family with multiple siblings and too many fathers, her childhood was filled with hunger, cold and neglect instead of the warmth, love, and true affection every child needs and craves. Instead, like so many young women in inattentive families, she had to fight to preserve her own virtue as well as her physical and emotional survival.

In unflinching detail and at times painful specifics, Airyka Edwards tells of her childhood, her adolescent years and her early years as a young single mother. She also writes of her struggles as a military wife and her triumph as a faithful Christian woman, following the time-tested mandates of her Savior. Her narrative more often than not, reads like a delightfully charming, friendly visit over coffee with a girlfriend. She makes it clear that her primary purpose in writing such a personal story is to provide a warning to young girls about the many dangers out there and most of all, to share a you-can-make-it-too story of triumph. The most incredible part is the amazingly capable, beautiful and intelligent woman, who has not only survived but thrived beyond any logical expectations.

No Longer Bound should be put into the hands of all young people, struggling to make their way, trying to avoid the dangerous pitfalls while finding their own place in this very complicated world. Hers is an excellent example that says in America, you can still achieve your dreams, with faith and hard work, and that you are not bound to a life time of misery, no matter what station of life you are born to. As a black single mother in America, she could easily have fallen into the self-pity pit and yet, she never gave up, simply accepting a lesser fate. Refusing to succumb to drugs, teen pregnancy and the other many pitfalls of her humble beginnings, Airyka Edwards is today a successful mother, wife, and medical professional who defies all the statistics of her origins. No Longer Bound not only tells her personal story, it serves as an inspiration to any who struggle with adversity, past, present, or future, and how through faith in Jesus Christ, a fine life might be achieved, by any definition of the word, success.

Laura L. Valenti, author

The Heart of the spring,

The Heart of the Spring Lives On,

The Heart of the Spring Comes Home,

Between the Star and the Cross: The Choice and

Between the Star and the Cross: The Election

Ozark Meth: A Journey of Destruction and Deliverance with co-author Dick Dixon

www.BetweentheStarandtheCross.com

What an awesome, riveting read! We picked this book to begin reading it, and we didn’t (couldn’t) put it down until we had finished it. This was an exciting testimonial that witnessed the healing power of a merciful, loving God. It depicts a life with experience, wisdom and spiritual strength. It substantiates the fact that God has a master plan, and all of us fit neatly into it. We should never give up on our destiny and we should never allow anyone to count us out. Her willingness to share even the most intimate details of her life experiences, is a testament to her strength and determination to send a message to everyone, that no matter what the circumstances are, Hold On and watch God change things. A must read.

Pastor

This book is an easy read, but stirs all the emotions that one could possibly experience. The way the author expresses herself, you truly feel that you are present in the circumstance feeling the pain that she endured; and yet, there is always a theme of hope throughout her story that is revealed in her writing that supported by her faith. This is an inspiring story of one who rises from poverty to a comfortable life-style of peace and acceptance. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who seems to be struggling with life. Well done!

Supervisor, Hospital Pastoral Services

Acknowledgements and Special Thanks

To thank God is simply an understatement, but all I can say is THANK YOU JESUS, for all you have brought me through. I still have a praise inside of me! I’m so thankful that You, Lord, allowed me to accomplish this. Thank You for every laughter, every tear, every pain, and every failure, but most of all every success!

I would like to send a special thanks to my mother.

Thanks to (All) of my supportive coworkers; I love and appreciate each of you.

All the staff at Author House Publishing Co. that worked so diligently with me.

Thanks to my husband for the financial support to fund my dream, I know we needed a new roof on the house, (smile) but instead you allow me to publish.

Thanks to all of my Patients that have allowed me the privilege to care for you, we laugh together, we cry together; we pray together, most of all we heal together. For without each of you my life would be void. You are the reason I am happy to get up each day to take my daily journey, you make me smile! I sincerely thank God for the experience with each of you. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to serve you. I love you All!

Those of you whom I did not, rather could not mention, please take no offense. I cannot name everyone. God has blessed me with so many awesome people in my life and I am so grateful for each of you.

I would like to honor my dad; I know you are smiling in heaven waiting on me. I miss you so much! I love you Daddy

I would like to thank my Pastor and First Lady for their assistance with my Subtitles

Words of Encouragement

To all those who read this book, I hope and pray to embrace your hearts and minds. I may not be able to reach all of you, but if I can just help one or a few of you that have lost all hope. I pray that you gain and regain your inner strength, your dream and yourself worth. My prayer is that God gives you what you need through my words and my testimony so that one day I can hear your words and your testimony. Remember the root word of testimony is TEST, so expect to go through and be tested and tried by God and by life lessons. If Daniel can survive the lion’s den, just think of what God can bring you out of!

I would like to extend a huge thanks to all who chose to read this book.

Acronyms

Dear: My nickname given to me by Brett (my husband). Two weeks after we were married he called my place of employment and asked for Rebecca, so they paged me over the intercom. I finally get to the phone and he’d hung up. I called the house and he answered saying, I’m sorry, Dear it will never happen again. So for over twenty years I have been called Dear. (Laugh)

PCS: A military transition to another duty station or assignment

B-K: African American

Y-T: Caucasian: when my children were younger I taught them not to stereotype people by the color of their skin. I told them to find another way to identify them; the girl in the lace dress or the boy in the red shirt, but through the years without my knowledge they acquired their own language; B-K for Blacks or African American and Y-T for Caucasians. I thought it was too cute!

FRG -Family Readiness Group in military

IDF: Interdenomination (Church of the Living God)

All Bible Text Taken From:

BGW - Bible Gateway- King James Version-KJV-by Public Domain

Simple Introduction

I invite you, my readers, to come and take this journey with me. I’d like to share some of my life experiences, events, some of my memory triggers and how I was affected by it all. I want to engage you in my triumphs, fears, pain, shame and my anger, but most of all, my freedom. I would like to purge my mind into this book and namely bring you in to relive and share how you can regain your sanity, your freedom, and your own power from within. It’s there; you simply haven’t released it yet.

I started off not knowing if this would be a Christian book or just my autobiography, but as I began to think and write, I thought, How can it not be a Christian book if you are a Christ like person; a Christian" woman? So take it as you may, I must include my walk with God, my faith, and my failures with God also. As you read you will get to know me and just who I am and how God allowed me to heal and mend my life back together.

It’s August 24, 2013, I think it’s one of my sisters birthday….which one I’m not sure. It’s been months now, close to a year since my desire surged to write my life story.

Chapter One

My Birth

This Is My Story

It was September 1963; fall had come early in a small town down in Mississippi when I was introduced to this world. Some say this cruel world, but I say not all cruel, but sometimes beautiful, wonderful and a fun world. Better yet… the United States of America! I was seven pounds at birth, a little frail, but alive. My mother took me home, Don’t know if my dad was there or not, most likely not. Don’t gain a preconception of him as he is not what you think!

Weeks later I am back at the Memorial Hospital…diagnosis…malnutrition. I lost weight because I couldn’t eat by mouth or drink. I was told by family an IV and feeding tubes were started in my foot, because I had no veins from being too dehydrated! Well, God apparently wanted me here He spared my life.

My dad told me years later he recalled the hospital being in a very rural area and they did not take very good care of me. My dad said he took me away from there. His words exactly, Baby you would have died if I hadn’t taken you somewhere else and I didn’t want my child to die!

I was born to one of the most beautiful women in Mississippi, Delores Brown and Amos Walker. My parents were not married. My mother is American Chickasaw Indian. I never knew my mother with two arms. My mother’s fiancé was teaching her to drive when they had a horrible accident. My mother was hospitalized for four months after that. She was in a coma for three of those months, I’m told. She had a severed right arm which had to be amputated. Mom was alive by the grace of God and only nineteen or twenty years old. She has a scar on her left leg where she had fifty to sixty staples to hold that side of her leg together. She also has a scar on the side of her head from wounds that she received. My mother managed life with one arm. My dad was just an everyday average, hard working African American from Mississippi. They were both alcoholics.

I, myself, never thought I was beautiful…didn’t inherit my mother’s long beautiful black hair nor her beautiful, gorgeous, flawless skin or skin color. My sisters, four pretty ones, one all right and me, just good personality, was always reminded that I was not the prettiest peach on the tree, skinny and bald headed. All the way to 2010 they still commented on my hair and how it made me look. They never thought of how their comments made me feel all those years, because I never let anyone know they got to me or hurt me in any way.

Be careful of the stones you throw. God’s Word says, Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13:2 KJV

Chapter Two

My History

Hope Lost And Found

I am from a family of fourteen children and twelve are still living. One child was lost as a result of a miscarriage my mother had. A second child, my brother Sammy passed away at six months old on a cold wintery night. He froze to death. My sister (who actually found him the next morning) I don’t believe that she has ever really recovered from that event. I believe the only obituary we had about Sammy’s funeral was a book marker with his name and a few words on it with the Lord’s Prayer. If I’m not mistaken she still possesses that today. My sister was just a kid herself.

We never had heat or hot running water in our house. My mother said she was going to get some milk and didn’t return home for days. The neighbors called the welfare people which were social services to come and take all of us away, as I remember back then,