Grace.

They say you must go back before you can go forward. So here is the "back" part of my story. At a very young 19, I got married. Yes, I know, but that is how it played out. When we married I was 15 weeks pregnant and scared out of my mind. While I had been raised in a Christian home, I still made choices I was not proud of. Six weeks after we were married, I lost my baby girl for unknown reasons. In that moment, there was nothing more devastating for me than the loss of my child. Then the ball of sadness started for me; in the next year and a half I lost two more babies. Then I got pregnant again, in total fear I moved forward. At 8 months pregnant, I found my husband with another woman. It devastated me and sadly did not shock me. I moved past it though determined to make a home for my baby boy with his dad. Jake was born just a week later. He amazed me and sent me into lala land...which made it hard for me to notice the signs of another affair. When Jake was six weeks old, I came home to another woman in my apartment. At that point, I grabbed Pj's for me and Jake and left. The next day, with the help of amazing friends, moved all my things out of our apartment. We were divorced six months later.

Although I had tried, forgiven and tried, it did not work. I felt like a failure. How could the father of my son, not love his mother? With a passion for my son like no other feeling in the world I made a decision. The decision for me was to move forward. To live my life to glorify my God, to make my son proud and to be an amazing single mother. When all of those things lined up in my heart, I met Ricky. God's timing is funny huh? Jake was a year old and I was still living at my parents. My Ricky swept me off my feet. He loved me and my son. He knew my past and still loved me. He knew what I wanted to grow into and loved me more. He is an amazing Godly man and I am honored to do life with him.

Now almost six years after Jake's dad and I have been divorced, we are good friends. I love his family and his two other boys. God has given me the opportunity to show grace. Grace that I only learned from living a less than perfect life that has been given to me by a loving and forgiving God. Daily, I am embraced by HIS never ending love and mercy. Daily I am renewed by HIS grace.

To move forward you have to have had a past. Not to live in the past, but to have had one. Although I could have never imagined the path my life would take, I am thankful for that path. It has brought me understanding of things others might never know. God's plan for me has brought me closed to HIM. God's plan has given me the most amazing husband. God's plan has brought me three amazing sons. God's plan has lead us to bring a little baby girl from another country to our home to love.

While our plan doesn't always work out the way we think it should, God's plan always works out to be the most amazing life. I am so thankful that my plan didn't turn out how I thought and that through the journey of coming inline with God's plan I have become who I always wanted to be.