Mommy Finger, Baby Finger

In the last text I sent my daughter’s dad I told him that I hoped he had found peace in his life — and I meant it. These days, I’ve tucked my daughter into bed and she rolls over to tell me, “Mommy, I can’t sleep … I just miss my daddy. He never came back.” Other times, I’ve held her while she has cried herself to sleep. I’ve also heard her prayers to God: “Please send me a new daddy.” Sometimes, she draws and paints and her feelings away. She will draw a family with siblings and a daddy. Sometimes, it wears on my heart to know how she feels — forgotten.

I haven’t written in weeks, but the theme of forgiveness has recently come up in my life and I wanted to share my own story because forgiveness has helped me release myself from the power of that pain. 

I’ve had a very broken journey but looking back now, I’m thankful for that pain. For a long time, forgiving myself was the hardest thing I had to do. Forgiving my ex was the second hardest thing to do. I was so wounded and so filled with resentment. As a child, I was wounded by my own upbringing. I wished to be a daddy’s girl. I imagined it. Instead, I was abused and neglected. So, for years, I carried this weight on myself that I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough and those lies challenged me day to day. I realized that I had been wanting my daughter’s dad to make up for all of this when we were together and even more … after our daughter was born. I had to learn the hard way that no one is responsible for your happiness other than you.

In my hurt, God somehow got ahold of me. Over these past two years, I’ve witnessed the Lord slowly peel back my layers of hurt and breathe a new life into my heart. In the process, I’ve acknowledged my own mistakes … and I’ll admit, there are times when I am hard-headed and hard-hearted and God reminds me to have mercy. See, I realized that God forgave me so much and he chooses to do it over and over again. Bitterness was only keeping me from experiencing a life of abundant joy and peace.

Forgiveness, although it comes in the form of a choice, is the window to the best version of ourselves. 

My daughter’s father continues to be unpredictable. However, I now understand that God trusted me to be a mother to my little girl because He knew I could. I have the privilege of showing my little one what faith, strength, humility and courage looks like. If you’re really angry right now and life feels so unfair and hopeless, I beg you to keep putting your Hope up there. Sometimes when we are so desperate for God’s intervention we feel frustrated, anxious and lonely. This is when you are required to be patient. There were a million times I felt my past, my fears and my insecurities tugging at me and in those moments I prayed for help. Time heals, but only if that’s the true, ultimate goal. God wants you and me to move ahead not by fixing the problems in front of us but through grace.

There are no guarantees that everything will work out the way you want it to, but there is a guarantee that He won’t fail you.