Leisha Doss

Losing My Identity Leisha Doss

Essence Baker, an 18 year old from Newark, New Jersey, finds life is more complicated that what it seems. As a child conceived by rape, she never had the chance of knowing her father or who he was. Childhood was a luxury that Essence didn't have and innocence was something she didn't get to preserve. From stepping over dirty needles to wiping bloody noses, her life was nowhere near a fairy tale or what a child's life should be. In the event of her mother's demise, Essence's life as she knew it would come to a screeching halt. She and her siblings were forced to move to Alabama with their grandmother, Lois. There, Essence made friends with a lady named Grace, who just so happened to be Jesus. Throughout their friendship, Essence learns that she isn't what happened to her, but who God created her to be. By this, she loses her old identity. She discovers that what she went through was to help other young women out of the same dark pit she was once trapped in.