Pretty Black: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

By Yolanda Hill

From the age of six until her adolescent years, author Yolanda Hill experienced inappropriate behavior from men she trusted. It fostered feelings of insecurity, guilt, shame, fear, and depression. These experiences escalated into shameful behavior. It took what felt like a lifetime to recover from these negative experiences to tell her story in Pretty Black.

Hill shares her journey to her “pretty black” moment and tells how she discovered the truth, beauty, grace, and strength that was within her from the beginning. She narrates how she connected the dots as a young girl who lost touch with her biological father and experienced the same loss with her stepfather, revealing how this affected her adolescent years both positively and negatively.

Pretty Black serves to help mothers and fathers understand the importance of a healthy bond between a daughter and her daddy. That bond helps a daughter make healthy decisions about her future relationships. Through this story, you’ll discover the God-given strengths within the writer and how God has so beautifully designed her to become His vessel of honor. Know there are detours along the way, but faith and persistence bring her to God’s expected end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385008285

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Pretty Black

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

YOLANDA HILL

Copyright © 2024 Yolanda Hill.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture marked KJV are taken from King James version of the Bible, public domain.

Scripture marked as NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scriptures marked as (AMP) are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.

Interior Graphics/Art Credit: JB Design Concepts (for professional logo)

Patric Bradley Photography

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0827-8 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0829-2 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0828-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023918031

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/19/2024

Pretty Black is a book of resilience, courage, overcoming and breakthrough. Sister Yolanda Hill is a truly prophetic voice for true deliverance in this dark season! Demonic deception is destroying many lives, but she has dared to run for freedom from slavery of abuse, shame, and degradation. However, she is not satisfied to be free alone, she has come back to share her testimony for others to find the same freedom and peace! Her transparency is liberating in a time of shadows. I will use this book for the hundreds of women that I lead in my Women’s Groups! Thank you for allowing God to use you as a gift to the world! Christ is indeed the answer to it all. Great book for all to read.

Evangelist Sharon Mathews

Pastor’s/Bishop’s Wife

Tabernacle Church of God in Christ

Southaven, Mississippi

South Africa Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction

Johannesburg, South Africa

Missionary Yolanda Pittman Hill has penned an informative and passionate book about her childhood life. Girls, boys, and young adults who feel trapped by or have experienced the pain of sexual abuse should read it. Her story will be a tool for them as they travel through life. Even those who are not directly affected can benefit from her journey of healing and restoration. Thank you, Yolanda, for the transparency and truthfulness you share in Pretty Black. Sexual abuse and molestation are prevalent in today’s society. This book is a must-read and will become a best seller. May God bless you as you pursue your divine destiny.

Supervisor Gladys Lockett Ross

Supervisor of Women

Texas Central Metropolitan Jurisdiction

Church of God in Christ, Inc.

Houston, Texas

Pretty Black is an example of Lady Hill’s faith in God and a testimony of God’s healing power in her life. I encourage you to purchase your copy of Pretty Black. It will rekindle your faith and reactivate your trust in God, knowing that He will never leave us in our time of despair. Pretty Black also demonstrates that our timing is not God’s timing. We must wait on Him.

Mother Yolanda Bryant

Wife of, General Board Member

Chairperson, Bishop’s Wives Circle

Church of God in Christ, Inc.

Memphis, Tennessee

Yolanda Hill is a beautiful person that radiates the love and loyalty of Jesus. I’ve not known her but for a short period of time. To know her, you would never know that she has been through any trauma because there isn’t an ash of her past that remains. It is a pure joy to read how Jesus can turn what the enemy tried to destroy her with and use it for His Glory. I once heard Elegance is when the inside is as beautiful as the outside. This is a life story that you will see the elegance and beauty shine through Yolanda Hill.

Tammy Holder

Pastor, New Life Church on the Rock

Lufkin, Texas

I really loved the book, Pretty Black, and was inspired by the author’s journey. Although she had a rough childhood, she survived and grew into a strong, self-confident, and beautiful Godly woman. Once I started reading the book, I couldn’t put it down. I had to see what was coming next. I highly recommend this book to everyone, especially those who have experienced low self-esteem growing up in an unhealthy environment. This book will inspire you and help you to understand that God has a masterplan for your life.

Mary Lee Mason

President

New Heart of Texas Ministries

Cypress, Texas

IN DEDICATION

To my husband, Charles. You have been an amazing supporter from the start. Thank you for choosing me, loving me, hearing me, and helping me heal on this journey. After forty loving years, I would marry you all over again. I love you with all my heart, my forever love.

Your Princess

To my children, Jason, Jonathan, and Jessica. You saw my tears as I nurtured and protected you. I’m sure you wondered why I reacted the way I did to certain circumstances and wanted to protect you at all costs. You loved me still as I disclosed my past at the appropriate time. Thank you for helping me heal. I love you.

To my bonus children, Deria and Trey. Thank you for demonstrating love the way you do. You are not a part of Pop and me by accident. God knitted us together, and we love you.

Mom

To my cousins Dixie Jack Spiller and Jeffrey Spiller, by whom I was crowned Pretty Black. You love to laugh, and you love life. You saw something in me I didn’t see—a pretty little black girl who needed to smile more, laugh more, and love herself more. Thank you.

Yolanda

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Women Who Have Influenced My Life

Special Acknowledgment

Introduction: So Why Tell the Story Now?

Prologue: Mom’s Legacy: A Letter to My Mother

Chapter 1: Mama’s Miracle

My Mother, Rose

The Experience of My Birth

Grandmother Comes for Me

Chapter 2: Grandma’s Hands and Granddaddy’s Too! ♪♫

Life in Anniston, Alabama

Grandmother Lilla

Granddaddy Bryce

Chapter 3: Where Is My Daddy?

Returning Home

She Saved My Life

Mom Meets My Stepfather

Chapter 4: That Ugly Little Black Girl

You Are So Black

Landa’s Gift

The Laughingstock

The Touching

It Had to Stop

Chapter 5: Dressing Up, Covering Up

Daddy’s Gone … Again

Met My First Love

On Losing an Attack by Satan

Chapter 6: Do You Think I’m Pretty?

Tenth-Grade Redemption?

Satan’s Second Attack

Moving On, or So I Thought (Shame)

Pretty Black (Am I Still Pretty?)

Chapter 7: Walking in My Shoes: The Road to Forgiveness

Meeting Charles

Life with Charles

Deliver Me from Evil (I Wanted to Hate)

The Healing of Forgiveness (I Wanted to Forgive)

Putting It All Together: Family Ties

He Worked It for My Good

Epilogue

Resources

Notes

Bibliography

Endnotes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Women Who Have Influenced My Life

I have a story to tell you. It is a testimony that should be passed to generations to come, although we live in a culture reluctant to talk about such issues. I’m not proud of my shortcomings. It’s been difficult to surrender to God’s love and forgiveness. I’ve seen doctors, counselors, and therapists about it. I’ve attended retreats to pray for healing. Most of my experiences have produced healing and support. I’ve had to find a place within my heart to accept and forgive myself.

I spent years, even decades, attempting to gather the strength to speak openly and in public. Some people said, Be quiet. Others said, Tell your story. I contemplated how my mother would be affected by my testimony and if my husband’s ministry would suffer. I decided to be quiet and only speak to women one on one, as my mother-in-law, Mother Josephine Hill, would often do when encouraging young women she encountered. She had experienced much emotional trauma in her life. So when she saw women, especially young mothers, within our church who needed a helping hand or loving advice, she would make herself available to them.

My mother and mother-in-law had always been supportive of my ministry dedicated to children, youth, young adults, and women considered to be in their prime. I did not attempt to minister to the senior women of my church; however, my aim was to learn everything I could from them to model their words of wisdom in my life, family, and ministry. God gave me a host of phenomenal women throughout my years of ministry who had been an amazing influence. Each of them had taken part in watering the garden that mentored me to maturity. Using their words of wisdom, comfort, and rebuke helped me become the woman God intended me to be.

I called them my great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 11–12, KJV). They taught, scolded, and modeled excellence in ministry. They registered in my memory as far back as my childhood, but for the sake of time, I would start with those women who helped begin a great work in me immediately after my marriage as a young woman. Some of them are the following:

•Mother Gerline Gantt (my gracious and elegant one; the homemaker)—I had already been taught by direct example from the many lessons of my childhood Sunday School teacher. So as I was faced with the enormous responsibility of being newly married and a young pastor’s wife at the tender age of turning nineteen, I felt I could make a difference six months into the marriage. I was not ready to lead a department or ministry of women because I was just becoming a woman. I decided I could always sit on the floor with the children, spanning in age from preschool to early elementary, whom we had welcomed from the neighborhood and teach a Sunday School class to them. I loved it. I purchased a flannel board and all the Christian felt characters to boot. God was just as pleased with my delight in instructing those children as if I were standing before thousands of women, and she was too. She was our first church mother. I would never forget her. Mother Gantt prayed fervently, invited others to church, was an amazing cook and gracious host, and didn’t mind cleaning a restroom or two. I was in the process of finding myself, inwardly and outwardly, as a young adult married woman during this time. I was making decisions on what I wanted to wear and on the look (we call it brand now) that denoted my taste. I didn’t always get it right. I know sometimes I disappointed her with my decisions, and for that, I truly apologize. But Mother Gantt continued to show love and give guidance. I could yet hear her teachings and testimonies of faith and see her smile like my husband and I were her dearest children and leaders.

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. (Titus 2:3–5, KJV)

•Mother Eloise Law (my first supervisor of women; the administrator)—I was taught to always be ready to give an answer about the hope within me. Once the children were of age, I was allowed to sit for my evangelist missionary licensure. This meant I had gone through enough on-the-job training as well as local Bible study training to minister before a congregation. I yet have my study guide from that time in my life. I was ready, and I passed my test. I was not given a pass. I had to study. I wanted to study to make her proud. She was the supervisor of the women’s department of our jurisdiction of churches. She worked a great work among us women. She appointed me president of the Pastors’ Wives Circle. I had no clue what to do. But she put respected senior women around me as mentors, and together, we worked a plan to uplift and encourage women of all ages. Upon Mother Law’s death, I witnessed how deeply young women wept and mourned her passing. It was difficult for me to see them in such distress. I was in awe of those young women’s responses. I decided then, that night at her memorial service, I would spend my life pouring myself into young girls and women to give them hope just as she had done for many of us.

And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. (1 Peter 3:13–17, KJV)

•Mother Gloria Davis (my Louisiana mom; the model of a First Lady)—Our tour of duty took us to North Louisiana. We moved there because my husband received a job opportunity at the university in a city in the area. The children were young, and I was very afraid yet optimistic. I had received my bachelor’s degree and was ready to work in my field of finance or accounting. Jobs in that field were scarce where we lived. I would have had to travel and work in a nearby city, and that would have taken time away from my children. My Louisiana mom taught me how to manage my home more efficiently as a working mother, to trust God with everything I had and know that He would make a way for me and my family, and to stand in my anointing and authority as a First Lady, even though