To be fair I knew where He was. I had found him once before in the 8th grade. I even dumped my hottie high school boyfriend for Him back then. Shortly thereafter He got lost again, probably buried under a pile of dirty Nine Inch Nails shirts, empty Camel Light packs, steel toe combat boots and a bottle of angst and overwhelming sadness. My mom kept telling me I would find Him again someday, and I kept getting pissed off that she was so sure of anything I might do.
Turns out she was right, though.
It was at the ripe age of 20 that I found myself pregnant and married to a guy I had "dated" (code for had been having sex with) for 3 months, most of which was long distance. I reluctantly walked away from a solid job at Petco and a room at my moms house, (harhar) to venture into grow-up-dom with this stranger whose genes were working like Legos with mine, building what would be my first and only boy.
It only took a few days, (literally I vividly remember the situation that occurred ONE day after my courthouse "I do's") to realize what a minefield I had stepped onto. I had a lot of problems. I had baggage that needed a cart to be moved all at once, and some that had even been lost in translation and wouldn't show up till later. I was no Betty Homemaker, "this man is blessed to have me", bout to be human of the year. He was just as bad, maybe even worse because there was a lot of alcohol in his system a lot of the time. Needless to say, here we were, these two terribly young and terribly broken people, about to bring another life into the world. What. A. Disaster.
Part of dealing with my problems back then included cutting. I got hurt, shut down and then physically inflicted pain in order to, I don't know, feel alive? Feel connected to something? Hurt myself because I felt so useless? All of the above I suppose.
I don't remember exactly what happened, I think I was maybe 6 or 7 months pregnant. I know Travis and I must have gotten into it something fierce, and I had cut my legs all up. I know I was sitting at our reproduction diner style kitchen table in our blindingly sky blue dining room at our first apartment, nestled in the heart of the ghetto. I think I was drawing, and it suddenly occurred to me that I simply couldn't do this. I couldn't continue on in the way I had been and make it out with any shred of life left inside of me.
I broke.
And I knew the only way I could begin to heal was back in the same spot I dumped my boyfriend in the 8th grade. The same spot my mom kept telling me I would find my way back to because that was His promise to her. I, in that moment, sitting at that table told God I had made a terrible mess. I told Him I didn't know what I was doing anymore, but I certainly wasn't capable of keeping up the miserable and vicious cycle that was my life. I told Him I needed Him back.
Because I had this bean inside me. The purest example of new beginnings and hope. And I loved him so enormously already and I wanted to be more than I was- for him. I didn't know enough yet to know I should have wanted those things for me, but I knew they were ALL I wanted for him and that was a good place to start. I knew I couldn't be better than my parents, better than what I knew, if something on the inside didn't change and I knew that God could do it because He had done it before. I certainly knew I couldn't continue to walk in my marriage without supernatural help and perhaps it was that, being able to give my child BOTH parents- solid and happy, that I wanted more than anything.
So, much to my mother (and fathers) delight, the weirdest thing that happened to me while I was pregnant, was Gods fulfillment of their never ceasing prayers.
"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
-Mark 11:24
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