I should have been a teen mom b/c my mom was barely out of her teens when she had me. Her mom was a teen mom and her mom was a teen mom and maybe even her mom was a teen mom. I should have been a teen mom b/c I was a sexually active teen with low self-esteem, no sense of worth or value and looking for love in all the wrong places. I was on the pill and so many are on the pill but they still get pregnant so it wasn’t the pill that stopped me from getting pregnant.
It was the grace of God.
The Father. Who for some reason said I would be the one to stop the madness of babies having babies and raising them alone. Because even though these women did a superb job (thanks mom) it took such an unnecessary toll on their bodies and their psyches and their own well-being. Because even though it just kept getting better and better in each generation in my blood line the fallout was horrendous and traumatic and tragic. There were brave women who pushed forward ahead each day trying to make ends meet and feed their children all the while escape the madness of these unhealthy abusive relationships with the men in their lives only to find themselves in another unhealthy abusive relationship.
Same play, different characters.
And I was making the same decisions. I was choosing the same madness. But for some reason God in His mercy and grace pulled me up out of the madness. He shook my world and took away the man and set me on a path of what some view as singleness, but now I see as the path of life.
I went willingly at first, but then when I saw that my idols were leaving, I frantically kicked and screamed my way down the path of life. I fervently grabbed, reaching for my idols only to find my hands come up empty, filled with air.
Filled with Him.
I loved Him. But that love didn’t make it easy to keep choosing Him. I was torn. I loved my idols too. And so, He had mercy and grace and led me step by step, year by year, forward onto this path, away from my idols. Because of the call.
So many of my friends and I are what I like to call “first generation seekers”. We are the first to walk a surrendered life. The first to break these generational curses. The first to function out of a level of wholeness, understanding and freedom that those before us never could. Maybe it’s because of the deception and deceit this generation is facing. God’s remnant needs to be rid of the falsehood so that we can truly be a light to this culture of darkness.
I would not have chosen me to be this light if I were Christ. I was the weakest link. I was the one who struggled to choose Him over my idols. Over and over again I struggled. But over and over again He did it through me. It was never about my weakness. It was always about His strength.
If you or someone you know is a teen mom there are resources available. There is help and support to aid you in choosing life. I found a podcast “A Bump in Life” that offers great info. I encourage you to trust Christ with your child. You just never know the overcomer you are carrying in your womb.
Shalom
