to my future children (#3)
choose gratitude. always. even when it hurts.
I’m 25, and your father and I still hasn’t crossed paths. But I know he’s there in the world somewhere. I haven’t lost hope yet. Maybe he’s also looking at the night sky, talking to God about you and or maybe praying for me too? My heart breaks that I’ve still yet to know, but hope in the God who loves and cares for me, is the only thing keeping me alive.
I think you’ve heard of the quote “Life is 10 percent of what happens to you, and 90 percent is how you react to it”
That, my kids, is wisdom right there.
Life is beautiful whilst complicated, but it could also be simple. It all depends on your perspective. It’s amazing and full of surprises - but whether that’s good or bad, will ultimately be up to you. You can choose to be bothered and troubled. You can also choose to be grateful.
This is me choosing the latter.
This is not an easy letter to write.
But i’d have to.
I need to.
All in hopes that one day you’ll read this and be encouraged to do the same - to choose gratitude and grace over crippling anxiety and pain.
Jesus will help you choose gratitude every single time. You can never do it on your own. I know that so well.
I have a not so quick story to tell.
A story i’m not 100% proud of - But it’s a side of me I’d be glad if you knew. Of course, before you would ( at the right time maybe when you’re 16 and older? ) i believe your father would know absolutely every detail of this story before you would. And that gives me a sort of peace because in all of this- your father, my husband, has chosen to love me despite it all.
Maybe because it’s also my story to tell, to show you just how infallibly human your mother is, and how gracious our Heavenly Father is. And to show you how every person you meet is another way for God to reveal who you really are, and eventually form you into who He created you to be.
And here it goes.
At this age of 25, I’ve fallen for 3 absolutely different men in 3 very different seasons of my life (That’s absolutely the first time I’ve ever written that and I am surprised as well) the 1st when i was 14, the 2nd when I was 20 and the 3rd, I was 24. It doesn’t seem like much for some, but honestly, for me, it’s too much too many.
I feel ashamed saying 3 instead of just saying 1. but praise God that there is no shame and condemnation for those in Christ; and so I say this with so much humility and grace. I’m not apologizing for how my heart invested in these people because in all those experiences, God made me realize so many things about myself - all of them priceless at its core.
Something deep inside of me wants to say “fallen in love” but there’s a deeper inclination for me to say that it was never love in the first place. And so fallen would be the right term. Maybe infatuation, or simply an unrequited admiration.
It just was never real love.
The guy I fell for at 14 taught me many things. But the one thing that stands out would be learning what it means to practice daily abundant grace - for myself and for him - even until now.
He made me feel less alone in a world I believed hated every fibre of my being. Even though I know now that, at the time Christ was already working in my life, it was this guy’s borrowed faith that eventually led me to truly taste and see Jesus’ love for me, resulting in the start of my own personal relationship with God.
ironic? maybe.
but before i can say these things, A lot of things went wrong - as you’d expect from a pair of souls who didn’t really know God personally. We both flirted with sin. We both fell extremely short on patience. Our “love” looked beautiful on Sunday mornings but, unfortunately was disguised under anxious attachment from Monday to Saturday.
We didn’t know any better
or maybe we did
we just decided to be ignorant.
but praise God for how He intervened. I praise God for His grace and how he ran after me - saving us both from ourselves by opening our eyes to our own red flags and to His Sovereign Grace. I am alive today because of Christ.
The heartbreak that followed was nowhere near pretty. I remember so much shame and pain; I would cry in the middle of the night. The Growth from that relationship was badly needed on both ends, and it was absolutely painful.
But because of that,
I remember every single day to never rob myself of the Grace that God continues to show me. In turn, also extend that same Grace to those around me
I learned the hard lesson of needing Christlike accountability and honest communication in my 20th year as I fell for guy #2 at the height of the pandemic.
My values had drastically changed, and my priorities regarding the Christian life and relationships were more or less set in stone. But like every Christian still growing in Christ, I obviously fell short.
This guy was passionate about Jesus and in sharing the gospel. The greatest character he embodied was consistency - from the way he kept conversations with me and never failing to make me smile and point me to Christ, to how he physically maintained a very healthy body and even healthy eating habits, which I eventually saw the value in, and started working out on my own.
I never really intended to like him,
but because we mostly liked the very same things
alongside our very wholesome and Jesus-centered conversations,
I eventually did.
But where we both abounded in loving conversations, we lacked in kind clarity for one another and transparency in accountability with others.
Or at least, I did.
I personally lacked in letting my sisters in Christ know of our late night messages filled with inside jokes and the video calls that seemed to last for hours. I didn’t think i needed to say anything to them and that was where it all went wrong.
I lost sight of my First Love in Christ because of my lack of accountability partners.
I yearned to hear from this guy more than I did Christ.
I became impatient.
I drowned in anxiety because there was no clear commitment.
There was so much pride in me.
I hated that we kept growing together, but there was never any clarity about what we were. I was convinced God had sewn our lives together without actually ever consulting Him until after 5 months.
Or maybe i did.
I just never listened cause I wanted it so much to be him, that I pushed aside the fact that I might’ve be wrong.
but also unfortunately, I kept him close because I wanted to. I was hoping “maybe soon he’ll realize my worth,” that for a second, I completely lost sight of my worth in Christ.
It was dreadful.
I would never recommend it.
I was in such a bad place.
To love and follow Christ, yet be so blinded by my own wants that Jesus became a badge of approval instead of the Savior who loved, cherished, and cared for me.
All because I thought I could do it by myself.
Whenever I think of this guy, it’s always a humbling reminder for me to always be a villager and journey with other people so that I never lose sight of the God and Savior who loves me. To never walk alone because I truly never could.
Are you still here? I told you this wouldn’t be a quick story to tell. But i promise you, it will all make sense. stay a while.
At the age of 24, I fell for a man who spoke the way he looked.
He spoke with kindness and authority; there was rarely anything trivial about what he did or said. Intentionality was his badge of honor, and Jesus was his confidant and cornerstone.
I convinced myself that he was important in my life because of what I made him to be in my head. There are so many more details to this but at the end of it all, that’s what it was.
a heart that yearns to love
a dream that wants to come true
a soul that longs for its half
I praise God that He made me see past all my rose-colored lenses, albeit how tough and wrecking it would be.
This one was a very good and God-fearing man. I have nothing bad to say about him, just that I was never on the receiving end of this man’s affection.
and sometimes,
most times,
that’s just how it goes.
Even when I followed all the boundaries, I said I’d keep
Even when all the lessons I’ve learned from life have been applied
Even when I became transparent and had accountability sisters
Even when I prayed for him and not for him
Even when Jesus became the priority of my life
I was never going to be the exception.
And oddly enough, I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders rather than a physical pain in my chest.
This man sits on the edge of all the lessons I’ve learned from those before and then some. And only now, looking back, am I vividly seeing Jesus’ hand in this part of the patchwork that is my life.
Every time Jesus said no to stop me from getting attached,
Every time Jesus told me to go the other way and not be with him,
Every time Jesus wrestled with my affection when relapse was my comfort,
Every time Jesus held me so tightly when I wanted to choose bitterness,
Every time Jesus cleared my eyes because I still chose to see differently,
Every time Jesus loved me loudly because that’s all I really wanted.
I praise God for His Sovereignty - even when that meant this man would eventually be with someone I know and call to be a sister and a friend.
With tear-stained eyes and a heart that still yearns, I write this letter to mark another chapter done.
These chapters I so hope to throw and leave to be eaten by the sea
These chapters I want so much to be quiet and nonexistent
These chapters I wish to burn to ashes in the ground for no one to pick up and relive
These chapters I hope you never experience the way I did.
But that’s not my reality, and it’s okay.
There were so many things my mind had to learn, and my heart had to accept. If I had to go through it all again, I still would. Because then i wouldnt have tasted and seen and experienced the Love of the Father.
Growth is painful after all.
So this is me, with the Joy of letting go, choosing gratitude and grace because that’s what my Heavenly Father wants to teach me.
“Life is 10 percent of what happens to you, and 90 percent is how you react to it”
My kids, do you see how it all boils down to this wisdom-filled quote?
I used to think it was so cliche.
But with my situation in this very moment - where love seems so far away and choosing to be bitter and to detach would be the easiest thing to do, the wisdom this quote brings is God-sent to me.
I’d rather be filled with Joy than be spoiled in resentment
I’d rather be grateful with Grace than be blinded by sorrow
I’d rather be hopeful for my tomorrow than be downtrodden by regret
I can end this chapter, but I can never close my heart to love.
Because, how then will I be able to see any of you?
…
To my future husband, my partner in this earthly life, I long to meet you. And when the time comes, I want to thank you for seeing past all my mistakes and seeing me just for me. You are God’s gift to me. You have my full heart. All the boys I’ve fallen for in my youth are nothing compared to you. I love you.
My kids, I yearn to see you all soon. Maybe not now. But soon.
Love, your mama
