Happy Birthday Madyson!!!

Going from being a "child" to double digits age is a big deal! I remember my tenth birthday and feeling like I finally wasn't a little girl anymore! Well, today my oldest daughter is celebrating that milestone. I can hardly believe that this day has already come. I am also celebrating the day my life truly began. In honor of my beautiful Madyson's 10th birthday I'd like to share my story with you all. She has blessed my life in more ways that I could have ever know and was one of the BEST gifts I have ever recieved!! (The other 3 being my wonderful husband and 2 other children!!!) I love you Madyson Danielle!!! Happy 1oth birthday! Always remember that even in the our biggest stuggles and trials God has a purpose and plan for it all. Trust in Him and he will never leave your side!!!

On June 5, 1999 I proudly walked across the stage in front of my friends and family and officially graduated from high school. I had done it! I was finally going to start my own life! Okay world, here I come!!!
On June 21, 1999 I stood alone in my bathroom staring down at the pregnancy test I had just taken. It had two lines and confirmed what I had been worried about for a few weeks. I tried desperately to convince myself that two lines meant negative. You see, my life was just beginning and this was not in my plan. How could it have happened? I remember feeling so overwhelmed and scared yet the tears wouldn’t come. While I stood there alone, afraid and shaking I realized that this secret fear that I had been keeping would all too soon become quite obvious. At 18 years old I was going to be a mother.
The weeks that followed were an emotional blur. The tears did eventually come as I had to tell my mom that I was pregnant. She went into her room, closed the door and for weeks barely spoke a word to me. My boyfriend took the new just about as well as she did. He just sighed, shook his head and began to try to convince me that I should have an abortion. In fact, it seemed that everyone who knew felt the same way. I’ll never forget when I was told “this is one mistake in life that you can fix.” Is that what they saw it as? Just get rid of it and pretend like this never happened and then everything goes back to normal. But I knew that from the moment I found out there was a new life growing inside of me that there was no such thing as normal anymore. There was no other choice for me. My decision had been made and there was nothing anyone could say to me that was going change my mind.
By the grace of God I found a local pregnancy crisis center that just happened to be starting a support group for young expectant mothers. The volunteers were each angels in my life. They offered me hope and support at a time that my own family was unable to give it to me. There I met other girls in my same situation and we connected in a way that others weren’t able to understand. I learned how to care for and parent my child. I was able to “shop” for items that I needed in their Mom Shop with the points that I earned for attendance, doctors visits, education and such. But more than anything I felt I had a place where I fit in and was understood. A place where I wasn’t judged, only loved. A place where my choice was the right one and nobody questioned it.
My mom did eventually come around during the second half of my pregnancy. At that time I could only see her as being selfish. After all I was the one who was pregnant. I was the one who was, as everyone seemed to think, “giving up my life!“ I can now look back and see things from her perspective as well. She had always wanted the best for me and she somehow felt as though she failed me. She knew how difficult having a child and being a mother was even with a partner. She saw some of the struggles and pain that I would experience long before I ever went through them. She knew some of the things that I was going to miss out on. She wanted more for me than what she felt she had. You see, she too had a “plan” for life, and just as I had felt in the beginning, this was not part of it.
On February 15, 2000 at 1:24 p.m. I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, perfect baby girl. The moment the doctor placed her tiny body in my arms I was consumed with an emotion that I cannot begin to describe. The love that I had for my child was beyond anything that I had ever felt or experienced before. In those moments I heard a still, small voice whispering to me that it will all be okay and I knew that it would.
The relationship I had with my boyfriend was pretty unstable long before I ever got pregnant. We had been together on and off for over two years and I tried so hard to cling to what I wanted it to be. He continually lied to me. He gave me ultimatums about the time I was allowed with him and the time that he got to spend away from me with his friends. I was so desperate to be loved that I allowed myself to be treated like that. I was just sure that when the baby came he would change. He would want to marry me and we would make it! I didn’t want to become another statistic and I honestly believed that if I just tried hard and hung in there long enough that I could make it work. I learned otherwise. When our daughter was six weeks old he told me, “I don’t like the way my life is anymore,” and just like that he was able to walk away and go live the way he wanted. Once again I sat there alone and wondered what I was supposed to do from here. As angry as I was at him I knew that it was really over this time. No more begging him to come back to me. No more pretending that I didn’t know he was lying to me. No more promises that I would do better. It was finally over and as strange as it sounds, there was a certain peace that came with that.
I woke up early one Sunday morning and for reasons unknown to me I got my daughter and myself ready and we went to church. One of the volunteers at the center had been inviting me to come to her church and this was as good a day as any. I walked in, infant carrier in hand and sat down. I expected to be stared at and judged by the people there. I had grown accustomed to peoples objecting glances and whispers. I went there alone but somehow I didn’t feel alone. I truly believe that as I sat in the pew in that little white building Jesus was there, next to me, holding my hand and telling me “I’m right here. I’ve always been right here.” I continued to go back to that church week after week and little by little I started to let go of “my plan” and let God work out His plan. I knew that there was more for me that what my circumstances or some of the people in my life wanted me to believe.
Things were by no means easy. I was a single mother living on my own in a low-income apartment complex. When the baby woke up in the middle of the night there was no one there to help out. When she was sick I was the one who took care of her. When I was sick she still needed to be cared for. It was a full time job. I had gotten by on what I had saved and with government help for about six months but it was running out and my benefits were up. In August 2000 I had to put my daughter into daycare and begin working a new full time job. I had placed my resume with a temp agency and after a few weeks I had still not heard anything from them. I contacted them and found out that somehow my paperwork had been misplaced. I went back in, filled out the paperwork again, completed an orientation class and within a week was placed in a pretty good job. While I had walked around being frustrated that I had not been contacted or placed it was in that time that God was doing what he had promised me he would do. I went to work on Aug. 8, 2000 not knowing that this was the day I would meet the real man He had chosen for me. This was the day I would meet my husband.
For the first time in my life I experienced what romantic love was meant to feel like. It was not desperate or jealous, angry or controlling. It was beautiful and it was worth the wait. I felt as though I had been swept off of my feet and I didn’t want to come back down. Not only was he handsome and kind, he was a man of God and I learned so much from him without feeling like he ever pushed it upon me. His life had been filled with trials and tribulation too and he had come out better and stronger for it. The day I introduced my daughter to him I explained that she was the most important part of my life and that if he wanted me he had to want her too. His heart was open and he welcomed her willingly in to his life. I had a hard time believing that I could really feel this happy. This man had not only fallen in love with me but he had fallen in love with my child as well.
We were married the next summer and I had the day I had dreamed of my whole life. Sure some things were different than I had originally intended but I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. I learned more about myself that previous year and a half than I had in my whole life. I discovered how strong I really was and I learned to trust that I was not alone in this world. I was blessed and it took all of this happening to me before I could open my eyes and see it for myself.
When my daughter was two years old I requested that her biological father sign away his parental rights. He had never been an active part of her life and though my husband had always felt like her father he wanted to legally adopt her as well. I prayed that her biological father would do what was truly best for her and in the end he did agree to it. I don’t know what his reasoning was. Maybe he saw this as a get-out-of-jail free card with no responsibility or child support payments. I choose to believe that it was his way of making up for what he was never able or willing to give her. She deserved a father and now she had one. She had her real daddy!
I am now nearly 29 years old. I have been happily married to my one true soul mate for over eight years. My daughter is now 10 years old and in the fourth grade. She is so smart and loving. She had a kind and gentle spirit that touches everyone she meets. She befriends the children who don’t have anyone to play with. She looks out for the younger kids around to make sure they don’t get hurt or picked on. She is the light of her grandma and grandpa’s lives. She loves the Lord! She makes me so proud to be her mother and I cannot imagine a day in my life without her.
We have also been blessed with two more daughters, one 6 years old and the other just turned 3. After 10 years with the same company my husband recently started a new job working for an incredible company that has amazing potential to grow into much more. I have had the opportunity to be a full time stay at home mom to my three girls for the last seven years. It has come with sacrifices but is also completely worth it. I am also in my sixth year of leadership in a Christian mothers group that ministers to all mothers of preschool aged children regardless of who they are, where they come from or what they believe. I have been able to use my past to encourage and support other mothers and in return I have benefited from each and every one of them. I have recently accepted a position as Coordinator of our new Teen MOPS group - a group that I am building from the groud up. This is something that I have wanted to do for a long time and although I am terrified by the enormity of it I kn0w that God will equipt me will everything that I need to bring his love and peace to these teenage mothers that are facing the same life of uncertainty that I was 10 years ago.
I look at my beautiful family and see the tapestry of my life that God has so carefully sewn together. When you look at the back of a quilt it doesn’t really look that pretty. The pieces are all rough and frayed and sometimes the whole thing just seems like a big mess. But then you flip it over it is incredibly beautiful. Things don’t always have to make sense when God is in control. His plan is perfect and He will never let you down.
I want my story to be one of hope. I want to tell people that although part of my life did end when I became pregnant at 18 years old a new and better part was just beginning. I wish I could tell everyone who doubted me that my life is better today that I could have ever imagined. I now try to look at the hard times in my life not as obstacles but rather as opportunities. I depend on God to carry me when I don’t feel like I can carry myself. I do my best with what I have been given, and I give the rest to Him. I understand why my life took the path that it did. I was determined to live my own way, to make all my own choices and to control my destiny. I was headed in a direction that surely would have destroyed me. God gave me life so that I would give Him mine. And on those day when my troubles seem to be more than I can handle I can close my eyes and hear Him say, “I’m still here. I will always be here.”
　
　
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

I love you all! ~Amy