When Love Found Lost

When Love Found Lost: A Memoir

Some stories begin in the light. This one doesn't.

Lakeshia Harkins Williams grew up in the kind of darkness that doesn't make the evening news - the quiet kind, hidden behind closed doors and familiar faces, where childhood fades before it ever fully arrives. Raised in an environment where survival became the only language her spirit spoke. She learned early that love was something other people got to keep.

From the shadows of a painful childhood to a pivotal encounter with a boy named Freddy, from a turning point that transformed departure into destiny to walking straight into the lion's den, Lakeshia's journey is one of heartbreak, resilience, and an unshakable faith that refused to let her go - even when she tried to let go of it.

When Love Found Lost traces the winding, often brutal path from abandonment to belonging. It's the story of a woman who didn't go looking for love - because she didn't believe she deserved it. Instead, love came looking for her. It arrived in the form of faith that met her fear, grace that called her from the ashes, and a man named Chris Williams who didn't try to fix her brokenness but chose to stand beside her while she healed.

Today, Lakeshia stands whole - a wife, a mother to Denada, Michael, Gabriel, and Janiya, and a bonus mom to Bryant and Teylor - living proof that family isn't only made by blood, but by choice, and that the deepest wounds can become the most powerful testimonies.

This memoir is for every woman who has ever felt too lost to be found, too broken to be loved, or too far gone to come back. It is a reminder that your darkest chapter is not your final one - and that love, patient and relentless, is already on its way.