I cried the day I found out I was going to have a daughter. Don’t get me wrong– it was not a sweet, tender moment. I was terrified.
After a tumultuous relationship with my mom, I assumed I couldn’t do the mother-daughter thing.
I stood in my bedroom and cried as I thought “What is God thinking? He knows I can’t handle this.”
I look back now and I know, I was right.
I could never have raised that beautiful little girl or rectified the relationship with my own mother by myself. If he would have left me as I was, I would have been doomed.
But God wasn’t done with me. He knew the plans he had for me and they were plans for good. Plans for hope and a future.
So he knit that precious little girl together inside of me and then he gave her to me, even though he was, at the very same time, continuing to create me anew.
Grace.
God gave me loads and loads of grace. I think that’s why I love kindness so much and why I am I drawn to those who are lost. Because I have been lost.
I received (and continue to receive) grace from God and my daughter and more people than I can even count on this Earth. Perhaps when you’re that filled with grace, it naturally spills over onto other people. It has no where else to go.
Leap Day 12 years ago, Jordan made me a mom.
I was so bad at it for so long. Seriously. I felt like I was as bad at parenting as I was at cooking.
But I loved that little girl, so every night, even before I knew God could hear me, I would ask him to make me the mom she deserves to have.
He’s still working on that request, but I can see the progress he’s made.
Wherever you are today, whatever you’re struggling with, whatever’s buried deep but still holding you back, I just want you to know that God’s not done with you yet.
You are wonderfully made and the Author is still at work.
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.” Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT)
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
