Conversations with the Inspiring Allison Henderson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Allison Henderson.

Allison, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was ‘blazing trails’ long before I was ever born. My biological mother was just a teen girl living in Florida when she found herself pregnant after an intimate encounter with her church youth Pastor.

Shamed.

Her family packed up and moved to Texas so that they could conceal the pregnancy and place me in a loving home. I was adopted by a devout Christian family who lived just outside of Houston in a little town called Highlands. I was a little person, placed in a little town, but there was never anything little about me. I always felt something BIG was bursting inside that I needed to release.

When I was 10 years old, my Mom gifted me a journal, and little did she know that those empty pages would completely change my life. When I was 14, I was molested by a family friend, a man my family trusted. I had no way to process all the pain I held inside, so writing in that journal became my salvation. It became my therapy and my release for all the BIG painful things that tried to block the beauty inside me. Every pain I felt I put it into ink. Line after line, pain after pain, I just wrote it all down. Slowly, that little journal soon became very BIG. So big that we needed 7 or 8 more journals in order to hold all of my joy and heartache. It even held the unwritten pains we often hide somewhere between the tear-stained ink in our life.

There came a time when the BIG pain could no longer be contained in the ink my little journals once concealed. Years had passed and the pain grew BIGGER. After a failed suicide attempt, being abandoned by my husband and left alone to raise two precious children, the ache became too much for my words to hold. So, the lines I once wrote became lines of a different kind, as I turned to cocaine and methamphetamines as my way to release all that I held inside.

Stuck.

I fell deeper into the pain. BUT GOD was BIGGER than all the mistakes and misery. He was bigger than all my addiction. Bigger than all my rejection, and one day, when I had hit rock bottom when the wreckage the drugs had left behind seemed greater than the once BIG BEAUTIFUL THING I held inside. God rescued me and made me clean. Truly miraculous, He completely set me free.

I began writing again, this time not about pain and suffering, but about the BIG THING that I always knew I needed to release. That Big thing was Jesus. In January of 2019, after over 10 years of sobriety, God told me to start a blog. I had no desire to be a ‘blogger’. I was content with just writing random posts on FB and IG. But God said, “Allison, TOGETHER, we are going somewhere, and this time the ink won’t be about pain but FREEDOM!” At that moment, I knew I was faced with a monumental choice. Stay in the ashes of yesterday or rise up in faith and begin fiercely, blazing a trail into a beautiful tomorrow.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Just beginning a writing/speaking career at 37-years old, was not only difficult but if I’d have left any room for doubt, it would have seemed utterly impossible. With so many young and talented, writers and bloggers, I have really struggled with feeling like I missed my train. “I’m too old to just begin this journey now,” I thought. “There is too much baggage for me to ever move ahead.”

You see, doubt is the poison of progress, but faith is the antidote.

So, if you’re a woman of any age, who finds herself doubting the BIG thing you know you’re called to do, take hold of faith. It only takes but a tiny seed of it to move a mountain, or to catch the train you think has already passed you by. You can’t miss your destiny. But you can’t blaze a trail sitting in the same place, tending to the same embers either. So, start throwing those flames of faith and GO!

“The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.” -Gilbert K. Chesterton

So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into Deep In A Shallow World story. Tell us more about it.
I’m most proud of all that God has done not because of, but in spite of me. Because of His constant wooing, and my obedience in starting the journaling blog, “Deep In A Shallow World”, so many doors have opened. I am currently deciding between not one, but two publishing agents, and have begun writing my first book entitled, “My Journey Home, and the People I Met Along the Way.“ I’ve met so many amazing people in my life, people with stories that might not have ever been told had God not forced my hand to write, and opened the door for this book.

I believe our journey in life is never JUST about us, we are always just one person along the way home (Heaven) who’s been gifted the opportunity to positively impact another….to take a person’s hand for a time as we journey onward. Most of our greatest stories on this journey aren’t about OUR impact, but all the people who’ve grabbed ahold of our hand along the way. We all are a living breathing story just waiting to be told, and this book is going to share so many that have completely transformed my life, but also transformed the world in which we live. I’m confident there will be many people showing up in this book who have no idea how their small act of kindness made shockwaves of change on my journey home.

It’s so exciting to see God blazing my trail to become a published author! It’s a dream I’ve had since my youth that is finally coming true.

It’s an honor that I have the ability to use my pain as a platform to display His glory. God has given me several opportunities to speak at women’s conferences and churches in order to testify to the victory He has won in my life.

I’m so passionate about sharing my story with other women because God uses it to ignite the hope that if He can completely transform me, He can change anything.

I have faith that this is only the beginning of the trail God is blazing through me, because, “though she is but LITTLE, HE(GOD) is fierce.”

What sets me apart from other writers, speakers and bloggers is this. I don’t write, speak or blog with the desire for financial gain, or fame. Everything I do is birthed from a passion to see those on the other side of freedom walking in victory. You can have the world. Just give me Jesus.”

Do you have any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general? What has worked well for you?
I’ve been blessed to walk alongside so many strong women who have helped me along the way. Some of whom I owe a great deal of thanks. My advice would be to find a friend/mentor who is raw and honest with you. One who both challenges and encourages you to push yourself further than you think you can go. One who sees the diamond with-in you, and teaches you how to cultivate it. One who isn’t afraid to speak to you about areas you need to grow in, but also willing to walk beside you long enough to see you bloom.

For me, I’ve found the best mentors and strongest networking connections at church. People often have the wrong impression of church people. They think we have it all together when in reality, we are just weak individuals who know where to go for our strength (God). Church for me is a family, and no one reps for you like your family will do!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://deepinashallowworld.com/
• Email: alli@deepinashallowworld.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deepinashallowworld/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deepinashallowworld/

Image Credit:
Kelly Topping Lifestyle Photography

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