Emmy Award- winning/news correspondent Hattie Kauffman was the top reporter at CBS during her time with the company, but in her new memoir she reveals how masking her heart breaking childhood and the anguish of marriage led her to Jesus.

During a recent Master Media Breakfast attended by BREATHEcast, Kauffman spoke in detail about her experiences addressed in her new book 'Falling Into Place'. The TV personality recalled being 30-years-old and felt like she ?could do whatever she wanted in the news world.

She admitted she was "scared, angry, and wanted as much face time a possible." To describe her feelings, Kauffman quoted a famous movie, "'I just hate people'" she said, "that was me."

She said she grew up so poor and lived in the projects in Seattle. Her parents were alcoholics and they had a total of seven kids. Due to their dysfunctional behavior they would fight and leave the house and the children alone sometimes for days. It only increased from there.

"Sometimes it was more scary when they were home, then when they weren't," she stated.

The children were left cold because the heat was turned off, skinny because there was not enough food, and in the dark because the lights were put out. At one point, even their water was turned off.

Kauffman said the one kind person during her childhood was her aunt. She would come visit, and taught her Psalm 23 word for word.

The young girl would soon start drinking like her parents, and at age 13 she recalled having her first black out?. 

Kauffman's anger increased and she began to hate the one person that was kind to her, her aunt. Unfortunately she never got to see her aunt again because shortly after she died of cancer.

The successful news correspondent also talked about the time she climbed out to the edge of a bridge with the intent of committing suicide because of how broken inside she was, but did not go through with it.

"You have all this pain and hurt inside of you and you can't let that out," she emotionally said.

Her hunger and pain would soon turn into a hunger for success. Kauffman says that it was not until she became a reporter that she realized that "her life" was a news story.

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"Kids of alcoholics learn to cover everything up," she said and cover up her past she did, "I would never let anyone see what was happening to me."

"I just wanted normalcy," she admitted.

Her first marriage was to an alcoholic and with her second one she was just looking for somebody that had a job.

Kauffman was the first Native American to ever report for a national network, but to her, the accomplishments were never enough. To top off her unrelenting dissatisfaction after 17 years of marriage to her "normal" husband, in 2006 he told her she was not good enough for him.

She immediately reverted to that scared little girl again and then suddenly the prayer her aunt taught her came back to memory.

After that heartbreak on Oscar Sunday, Kauffman checked into a hotel since she did not want to go home. She explained she was resting at the hotel and felt the warmth of a hand resting on her head and felt such a peace.

The next day she tried to recreate her experience and nothing happened, but she did hear church bells ringing and ran to the church across the street from her hotel.

Once there she thought to herself, "Why am I here and nothings happening." She went on to explain that she kneeled down at the alter and the pastor walked up to her and did the same exact thing she felt the day before. He rested his hand on her head and she felt the same peace. She said it gave her confirmation that God was real and trying to get her attention. She gave her life to Him in 2007.

This divine experience and conversion transformed Kauffman, "My present changed, my past changed, and my future changed. Her eyes were now opened to the fact that God kept her and her siblings.

"I never knew your past could change," she declared. The savvy reporter now saw light when she used to see darkness.

CBS did not renew her contract, and her marriage ended in divorce, but she had a hope. Kauffman was afraid at first that American Indians would turn on her for "becoming a Christian."

She said the Native Americans sometimes hold much animosity against the Christian community because of what the missionaries did to them in the 1800s. Kauffman however said those missionaries were "imperfect messengers" who brought a perfect message.

Kauffman is now remarried to someone she met in church. Her new book 'Falling into Place' is available on Amazon. She wrote the book to show what God had done and in which she wrote, "What ever you've been through doesn't determine who you are."

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