Posted by Adam

Tuesday September 1, 2009

Whitney Houston says her religious beliefs helped her battle her demons.

The musical superstar — who struggled for years with an addiction to crack cocaine and a turbulent marriage to singer Bobby Brown — says her faith in Christianity gave her the strength to get her life back on track.

“I thank God that people love me. But I really thank God that God loves me,” said Whitney, who has now launched her comeback with her first new album in seven years. “I thank Him for chastening my heart, for never letting go. What I did sometime… I went off and did my thing, but He never let me go.

“I shed a lot of stuff, a lot of unnecessary weight in the last three or four years. I left a lot of old luggage behind, and when I did, the blessings just started pouring on me, and the light in my spirit started to lift again.”

Houston also revealed she only agreed to her eagerly-anticipated comeback when she was sure her teenage daughter, Bobbi Kristina, trusted her as a mother.

“She and I are not only mother and daughter, but we’re good friends,” she told Ebony magazine. “I want her to trust me, to be able to trust in me, to know that I’m not going nowhere.

“If she knows that I’m there for her, she can depend on me. I’m the dependable one; she can depend on her mommy.”

“My mother’s getting older,” Whitney added. “I wanted to spend more time with my mom because during most of my 20s and 30s, I was dealing with making records and traveling the world and being this thing — icon.”

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