Born Into War Zones: The Rose that Grew From Concrete

“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?”

—Tupac Shakur

Some of us are not born into ideal conditions.
We are born into pressure. Into cracks. Into environments that were never designed to sustain tenderness.

This space exists for those who learned how to grow anyway.

Since I introduced my work to the world last week, I believe it is only right to share my story — the background, the experiences, and the formation that made me who I am.

This page is for those who want to get to know the founder behind Hands of IX.
For those who want to understand the heart, the faith, and the journey that shaped this work.
And for those who may find their own thinking gently transformed by the seeds planted in these words.

Take what you need.
Leave what does not serve you.
And feel free to come back as often as you need.

Each Monday, I will share a blog honoring my time served in Pine Bluff — the people, the lessons, and the places that shaped my calling. This is my way of honoring home, even as I continue forward.

I am also available for coaching, guidance, and support.
You do not have to walk alone.

I am here to walk with you.

From Knowing Hell to Cultivating the Garden

My name is Rebecca Newby.

I know what hell feels like.
Not as a metaphor.
As a lived experience.

I know what it feels like to hate.

I hated most of my childhood, except for the places that gave me refuge.

School — Dollarway School District, to be specific — and the Boys and Girls Club were the places I felt most at home. Spaces where structure existed. Where expectations were clear and life felt predictable. Where I could breathe.

I hated that my parents were not together. I hated that my mother was unhappy and carrying more than she should have had to. I hated that I did not always feel safe. I hated feeling powerless in circumstances I did not create.

There was a point when I hated that I was alive.

I did not have language for it then. I was a child navigating adult pain without adult tools. But I know now that what I was experiencing was despair. And despair, when left unattended, can feel like hell on earth.

That is why I do not speak lightly about joy.
And I do not teach peace as theory.

I know what it feels like to live without it.

Before I Had Language

I was born to two parents in their twenties, trying to figure out this thing called life in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

They loved me deeply, but love does not cancel youth, trauma, or unhealed wounds. When I was four years old, they separated shortly after my little sister was born. That was the beginning of being split between two households. It was also the beginning of learning how to adapt.

I became a daddy’s girl by default, more out of survival than choice. My mother was raising me and my sister while still healing from the inside out. She carried more than she should have had to. I witnessed things as a child that I did not yet have language for. Things that shape you before you know you are being shaped.

My mother is an amazing woman. Kind. Loving. Soft hearted. I have watched her kindness be mistaken for weakness. I have watched her be used and abused. As a little girl, I judged her for that. I compared her to my father and any other woman I knew. That was not fair.

Parents are people too.
Human, indeed.
And children rarely understand the weight their parents are carrying.

By the sixth grade, I reached my breaking point. I made the decision to move out of my mother’s home and live with my dad. Choosing me was hard. I know it hurt her deeply. But that was the first time I chose my own happiness first.

It felt foreign.

From sixth through ninth grade, living with my dad was the first time my nervous system began to relax. I could breathe. I could think. I began writing, journaling, poetry, speaking, and slowly finding my light inside.

I was shining.

I had always been a good student, even in chaos. That part of me never disappeared. But now, I had space to become more than who I needed to be to survive.

Then ninth grade came.
And everything cracked open.

When I Fell Between the Cracks

In the ninth grade, my life unraveled in ways I could not yet explain.

I became what systems later call “a child who fell between the cracks.”

At the time, I was overwhelmed by matters far beyond my control.

I was grieving. Angry. Exhausted. And I did not want to live.

That year, I experienced alcohol poisoning.

At the time, I did not even know alcohol was dangerous. In communities like mine, kids grow up fast. Conversations about how much liquor you can hold are casual. Normal. No one talks about people dying from alcohol. No one talks about limits or protection. We were children carrying adult behavior without adult guidance.

I had to leave Pine Bluff.
Not because I wanted to, but because I almost died.

I did not understand the seriousness of what had happened. I only knew my life shifted again, suddenly and without my consent. My grades dropped. My spirit hardened. I stopped caring about school, about the future, about anything I believed my parents cared about.

I wanted my old life back.
And when I realized that was not happening, I stopped caring altogether.

Looking back now, I see the spiritual battle clearly. While I was acting out of hurt, the enemy was trying to rob me of my future.

I did not have language for that then. I only knew I was tired of fighting.

In the middle of that season, my seventh grade English teacher came back into my life. Not with discipline. Not with lectures. With light.

She asked me a question I was not ready for.

“What do you want to do with your life?”

I did not have an answer. I was consumed with surviving the moment, not imagining a future. But being seen interrupted the lie that my life did not matter.

That was when teaching entered my spirit.
Not as a career.
As a calling.

Choosing to Finish

My high school journey after that was anything but traditional.

I attended five high schools in four years.

I learned how to adapt quickly, how to read rooms, and how easily children carrying grief can disappear in plain sight.

By my senior year, I returned to Pine Bluff under one agreement.

My dad told me I could come home if I agreed to graduate high school.

No shortcuts.
No early exits.

I had my own plan. My ACT score was strong enough to start college. I believed I could pass a GED. I was ready to move on and prove I did not need to finish the way everyone expected.

But my dad and God had other plans. Honestly, I don’t even remember telling my mom until I agreed.

That agreement grounded me. It was not punishment. It was protection. It told me I was worth finishing for.

I began working at the Boys and Girls Club, and something surprised me. The work came naturally. So naturally it almost scared me.

I knew how to talk to the kids.
When to listen.
How to redirect without shaming.
How to encourage without lowering the bar.

I was not trying to teach. I just did.

That was when my calling was confirmed.

I kept my word.

I graduated high school and enrolled in college in 2013. 

I became pregnant with my daughter, Jada, in 2014, gave birth in 2015, and raised her as a single mother while living with my dad.

In 2017, I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. I later earned my M. Ed in Educational Equity with a 4.0 in 2021, and my Ed. S. in Educational Leadership with a 4.0 in 2025.

God redeemed every season I once believed would disqualify me.

A Woman Who Can Never Say Never

I am a woman who can never say never.

I speak as someone who has lived, learned, and been formed over time. There are chapters of my story that are still held with care, not out of fear, but out of wisdom and timing. What I can say is this — there were seasons when I relied on my own understanding, believing strength meant holding everything together.

Over time, I learned the difference between effort and alignment. Between self reliance and surrender. Between pushing forward and being rooted.

And through it all, God kept me.

It was not until I chose gratitude as a practice, not a personality trait, that something shifted. Gratitude did not erase my past. It reframed my present.

I began to thank God intentionally, even when circumstances did not change. For breath. For refuge. For safety. For the strength to keep going when I wanted to quit.

That practice carried me into 2020.

Teaching during the pandemic required a different level of surrender. Control was no longer an option. Certainty disappeared. Fear was loud. Anxiety was constant. And yet, this is where my faith deepened.

Scripture became my anchor.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done.”
Philippians 4:6

This verse became my daily mantra, one I repeated in my mind over and over again. It was instruction I took to heart and practiced, not just read.

And slowly, but surely, joy followed.

Not loud joy.
Not performative joy.

Rooted joy.

Joy that comes from realizing God has been keeping you even when you did not know His name. Joy that teaches you how to see the Garden after years of only knowing survival.

I believe heaven on earth has been promised to us.
I believe life more abundantly is not metaphorical.
I believe Jesus meant what He said.

And I believe He has kept my mind.

Leadership, Obedience, and the Garden

Everything I survived did not disappear when I became an adult.
It became preparation.

After graduating college in 2017, I stepped fully into education. For four years, I taught ninth grade, the same threshold year that once nearly swallowed me. I stayed there intentionally.

Teenagers are not problems to be managed.
They are people in formation.

In March 2021, my life changed in a matter of days.

Within the first seven days of that month, my community experienced a school shooting. On March 3, 2021, the student who was shot, Daylon Burnett, passed away. Just days later, on Sunday, March 7, 2021, I received a phone call that my daughter Jada’s father had passed away.

All of this happened while I was still showing up as a classroom teacher.

That week divided my life into before and after. 

I was grieving as an educator, as a mother, and as a human being. I carried my own sorrow while helping children navigate theirs. I anchored myself because my daughter was watching. Because my students were watching.

Because faith, in that moment, was not optional.

I showed up anyway.

In the seasons that followed, I transitioned into leadership. I served as an assistant principal. I later led the number one charter school in the state. Then I became the founding educator of a Christian micro school.

From the outside, it looked like success.
From the inside, it required discernment.

God was trusting me with more and more.

Titles do not protect your soul.
Productivity does not heal grief.
Effectiveness does not always mean alignment.

There came a point when obedience mattered more than advancement.

I stepped away from roles I had worked hard to earn, trusting that God does not waste obedience. Knowing that people do not assign purpose — God does. Accepting that calling is greater than any title. And no, it was not a conference call.

Scripture reminded me of what had always been true:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11

I did not leave angry. I did not leave bitter. I left grateful for what I learned and clear about what I was being called to next.

That discernment gave birth to Hands of IX.

After years of serving deeply in Pine Bluff, loving my community, fighting the fight, and finishing what God asked of me there, I transitioned to Atlanta.

This time, not as a child forced to leave.
But as a woman sent forward.

I left differently. With faith intact. With maturity earned.

With peace I did not have before.

That contrast matters.

I know what it feels like to leave home in pain.
I also know what it feels like to leave in obedience.

Hands of IX exists at the intersection of those truths.

It exists for teenagers who feel unseen.
For parents doing the best they can.
For educators carrying more than the job description promised.
For families navigating systems not built with tenderness in mind.

The voice behind Born Into War Zones comes from lived experience.

From classrooms and kitchens, grief and growth, leadership and letting go.

I did not make it out by accident.
I made it out by grace.

And I am still walking, cultivating the Garden, and trusting God with the pen.

In Closing…

Home, Reimagined

Growing up, home was not just one place.

Home was Dollarway.
Home was the Boys and Girls Club.
Home was my dad’s house.

Those places anchored me. They gave me rhythm, safety, and belonging when life felt unsteady.

Today, Dollarway is no longer in existence.
The Boys and Girls Club building is closed for remodeling.
And the two houses my dad once owned are now empty lots.

The places that held me are gone.

And yet, I am still here.

What I learned, slowly and honestly, is that home is not always a structure. Home is finding your way back to yourself, again and again.

It is rediscovering joy and confidence when they once felt far away. It is stepping back into the light after walking through the valley and realizing it was only a shadow.

Home is opening the Word and feeling the Holy Spirit meet you there.
Home is the small, still voice that comforts when nothing else can.

Everything we see around us is beyond our control. Buildings change. Institutions close. People leave. Seasons end. What remains is the inner place we tend to daily.

Our truest home is the table we build in our minds.
Self seated honestly.
God present faithfully.
Every part of us welcomed.
Each moment received as it is.

We can be here today and gone tomorrow.

So I no longer spend my time waiting and wondering. I choose to be still and know that He is God. As a believer, I trust that the victory is already mine.

I turn inward.
I focus on Him, not them.
I guard my attention because distraction is too costly.

This is the Garden.
This is home.
And this is where I choose to live.

You are invited.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Thank you for your openness, your attention, and your willingness to sit with these words. I do not take lightly the trust it takes to enter someone else’s story.

Above all, I give thanks to God — for keeping me, guiding me, and granting me peace that surpasses understanding. Every chapter shared here is a testimony of His grace, His patience, and His faithfulness in my life.

To God be the glory for what has been, what is, and what is still becoming. This work exists because of Him, and it is offered back to Him with humility and gratitude.