I was 19 when I found out I was pregnant. 3 months after I started dating my husband. Got engaged as soon as we found out. I was 20 when I had my son. 21 when we got married. There's little doubt that if God hadn't intervened, in so many aspects of my life before two of my many great blessings came into my life, I'm not sure I'd be in a very positive place.
Back when I was first married, I had all kinds of what-if questions. What-if I couldn't meet all my son's needs? What if my husband wasn't the one God chose for me, after dating him for only 3 months? What if I was meant to do something else in my life like become someone famous *gasp* or own my own corporation, boss-lady style, dressed to the nines in name brand clothing, breaking the glass ceiling? Well....
Let me tell you about how God loves you so much, He won't give up on you and those dreams, even the ones you never thought you'd have. Because I'm finding out on my journey with Him, my heart's desires are starting to align with His perfect will for me.
And it all started with the biggest heartbreak of my life.
Or so it felt like back then.
Jamie was everything a seventeen year old girl would want in a boyfriend. He was kind, thoughtful, considerate, handsome and utterly charming, with his black hair and ocean gray eyes. He could do and get away with just about anything and everything. He was smart as a whip too. I spent every waking hour with that boy I had put up on a pedestal. I thought I loved him. Maybe I did in an almost kind of way. Though you couldn't tell me that back then. Now, however, the love I know now does not compare at all to the 'love' I thought I had as a teenager. I'm not saying teenagers can't be in love, but for me personally, no this was not the love God intends between a husband and wife, the staying, lasting kind of love. That love back then was fickle, fleeting depending on the arguments we had, which, towards the end of our relationship, was almost every time we were together. No, I didn't love Jamie the way I know what love is now.
I was strongly attached and connected to him though. I won't deny that. He was the wind in my sail, the pen to my paper, the lyric in my song. When he moved, I moved. I was almost totally dependent on him in everyway. Especially emotionally. It was toxic. Apart from him, I didn't know how to stand on my own, didn't really know who I was. If I didn't hear a positive word of affirmation about our relationship or myself from him, my day could be ruined. I had given him that much power over me. I thought he was perfect, so perfect that after I gave him my teenage heart, I thought I should give him my body as well.
Looking back now, of course I know I shouldn't have given him either. Both of us were too young to realize how special the giving of heart and body is. No matter what I told myself when I was younger, they weren't really his to have. Because I gave that teenage boy all of me, I thought I knew how to make him stay and love me. He didn't stay. He didn't love me. I wasn't without fault either, I was probably just as bad for him as he was for me. Our relationship was tumultuous, too erratic, too unbalanced to last. When we split, because I was so dependent on him, I didn't have any friends. My heart was still shattered in a million pieces it felt. So when college classes began, I made new friends, mostly in the male form because they thought I was pretty, when I didn't feel so pretty. They made me forget all about Jamie for moments at a time. Then one guy in particular came along who made it past the first couple dates. Then a month. Then three...but I wasn't over Jamie yet. I still hadn't learned how to stand on my own, didn't know who I was.
And this is where the love story begins.
