Screen Door

Sharon Smith reaches deep down and recaptures the torturous times of her childhood growing up in Harlem, New York. From kindergarten through high school, her experiences accelerated her awareness of life’s unyielding challenges. She met the hard and bitter reality of becoming an outcast. Concurrently, her family was shattered by alcoholism, poverty, and physical abuse. As her mother traveled the country, Sharon became the substitute mother for her sister and three brothers. She endured adversity and hostility in 1960s Harlem public housing projects.

Entering her teenage years, Sharon met with even more abysmal poverty and despair. Her health compromised, compounded with family issues, Sharon longed and prayed for acceptance and a better life. Despite all of the challenges, she decides to return to the religion of her youth. She began to seek God’s guidance and the meaning of love in her life. With prayer and reading of the Scriptures, Sharon found salvation and contentment. As she tells her tumultuous early childhood story, filled with years of ridicule and contempt from her peers, which tore at her self-esteem and self-worth, we begin to see her life unfold, the little girl guarded behind the protection of God’s screen door. January 2014