The Gift of Becoming: How God Rewrote My Story of Motherhood
I wasn’t taught how to be a daughter.
And I certainly wasn’t taught how to be a mother.
The kind of nurturing, soft-hearted connection I saw in others' lives... the one where a mother holds space for her daughter, guides her, and loves her through every season?
I didn’t grow up with that. It was never modeled to me.
I wanted to mother with gentleness and compassion.
To love them in ways I had only imagined.
I didn’t have a map. I didn't have an example.
I didn't even have a clue.
Just a desperate hope that love could lead me where memory and modeling never did.
And let me tell you, trying to build something you’ve never seen? It’s messy. It’s hard. It’s scary.
But God, in His kindness, didn’t leave me to figure it out alone.
Two very prayerful, deeply loving women of God.
One came alongside me like a sister.
The other? Like a mother.
Both relationships that I longed for so deeply but never really truly had.
They were answers to prayers I didn’t even know how to pray!
They saw me.
They loved me.
They walked with me through growth, grief, trust, and transformation.
They didn’t try to fix me. They just stayed... present, patient, and full of grace.
They loved me.
They walked with me through growth, grief, trust, and transformation.
They didn’t try to fix me. They just stayed... present, patient, and full of grace.
That’s something I never experienced growing up and well into my adult life. I was always abandoned without explanation. Love and acceptance were never constants.
But even though I hadn’t been shown what mothering looked like, I was determined to give my children what I never had.
But even though I hadn’t been shown what mothering looked like, I was determined to give my children what I never had.
I have six children - five beautiful daughters, and one precious son who passed away in Nov of '22. They’re mostly grown now, with the youngest turning 14 in a few months. But raising them, especially while I was still healing myself, required a courage and faith I didn’t know I had.
I had to heal and help them heal.
I had to correct every wrong I saw modeled to me.
And even when I didn’t get it all right, I got this part right:
I never abandoned them. And I never stopped loving them. Ever!
Through the love and steady presence of those two women, I began to learn how to be the kind of woman (and the kind of mother) that I had always longed for.
Slowly, my confidence grew.
And when God saw that the timing was right, my circle widened.
And when God saw that the timing was right, my circle widened.
I started connecting with women in ways I never thought I could!
As someone who lived through trauma and learned to self-protect, I never imagined I’d have safe and deep friendships with other women!
But that’s what Jesus does! He breaks down walls and builds something new.
I mother from a place of redemption.
And now, as a "MiMi" (grandmother), I get to love again - with wholeness and joy! I get to pour out healthy, nurturing love to my grandchildren in a way that’s not shadowed by pain, but shaped by healing. I get to lead by example - and that, in itself, is a legacy.
You are not defined by what you lacked.
You can still become everything you wished you had.
And in doing so, you won’t just change your life.....
you’ll change the legacy that follows you.
you’ll change the legacy that follows you.
You don’t need a perfect past to build a beautiful future.
You just need to be willing to let love lead you into something new.
God will send the right people at the right time.
And He’ll even use the wounds to write a story full of healing, hope, and heart.
Because sometimes, the most powerful mothers…
are the ones who had to become what they never received.
are the ones who had to become what they never received.
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten... And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you... Joel 2:25-26
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