10/21/2026
If you had told the little girl I once was that one day she would stand before other women and tell them about the goodness of God, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.
Because for a long time, my life didn’t look like something beautiful.
I grew up surrounded by things no child should have to carry. I grew up in a home affected by addiction, and I learned far too young that the people who were supposed to make you feel safe could also be the people who hurt you.
I experienced things as a child that changed the way I saw myself and the world around me. I was molested. I was r***d as a young teenager. I found myself in toxic relationships. I made choices I regret. I experimented with drugs. I carried shame, hurt, anger, confusion, and wounds that I didn’t know how to put into words.
And somewhere along the way, I started believing that maybe this was just who I was. Maybe broken was all I would ever be.
But God.
Even when I didn’t know Him the way I know Him now, He knew me.
Even when I was running in the opposite direction, He wasn’t running away from me.
Even when I made choices that took me further from Him, His hand was never too short to reach me.
In February of 2022, I made the decision to end a pregnancy.
At the time, I was in a place in my life where I was hurting, confused, and not walking with God the way I do today. I made a decision that would stay with me long after the moment itself was over.
And I don’t say that lightly.
For a long time, I didn’t know what to do with the emotions surrounding that decision.
There was grief.
There was guilt.
There was shame.
There were questions I couldn’t answer.
And there was a little life that I knew I would never get to hold.
Sometimes I think about the fact that, had that pregnancy continued, that baby would be four years old now.
That’s a strange kind of grief to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it.
Because life keeps moving.
You keep celebrating birthdays.
You keep raising your other children.
You keep making dinner and doing laundry and going to school events.
But every once in a while, something reminds you of the child who isn’t there.
And you wonder who they would have been.
I can’t change what happened.
I can’t go back to February 2022 and make a different decision
But I also refuse to believe that my worst decisions get to have the final word over my life.
That chapter became one of the places where I began to understand just how desperately I needed Jesus.
Not a version of Jesus who pretended my choices didn’t matter.
And not a version of Jesus who wanted me to live forever beneath condemnation.
But the Jesus who tells us the truth about sin and offers grace to sinners. The Jesus who calls us to repentance and then meets us with mercy.
I had to learn that repentance isn’t the same thing as believing I am unforgivable.
There is a difference between conviction and condemnation.
Conviction says, this was wrong. Come back to Me.
Condemnation says, you are too far gone.
And I have learned that the voice telling me I’m too far gone is not the voice of my Savior.
I will always remember that baby.
I will always wish I could have made a different decision.
But I don’t have to spend the rest of my life trying to punish myself for something I cannot undo.
I can grieve.
I can repent.
I can remember.
And I can still receive the grace of God.
That chapter changed me.
And eventually, God began using even the pain of it to change the direction of my life.
Next Wednesday you will see another part of her story 🌷
