When I hit the “publish” button on my first blog post last week, I experienced such a mixed bag of emotions. I was excited because I knew it was a small step in obedience toward what God was calling me to do. At the same time I was a little nervous. It made me feel vulnerable, the thought of laying part of my story out for anyone to read. However you guys were the absolute sweetest, offering nothing but kind words and encouragement. Whether by text, Facebook message, or in person everywhere I went last week I was blown away by your support. Thank you so much! This just solidifies to me that this nudge I’m feeling to write really is a nudge from Him.
I wrote what I thought was going to be my second blog post months ago. I was jumping right in with how we initially found out about our baby’s diagnosis. However, this week I’ve really been struggling with whether or not that’s really truly the beginning. I promised I was going to be real and honest with you and I’ve decided that part of that is going to involve laying down my pride and telling you about the struggles of my heart. I really wanted God to give me a pass on that, but the more I prayed about it the more it became perfectly clear, to really understand my life after Lorris, you really have to know who I was before.
If you were to ask any adult in my life to describe me as a child they would most likely say I was serious, thoughtful and responsible. In reality I was probably most of those things, but I was motivated by this deep desire to please people. I just wanted to make everyone happy. I also worried a lot about things that other kids my age just didn’t
One of my very first memories of this is when I was six years old, a first grader at Caneyville Elementary. My teacher, Mrs. Edwards had given us our very first homework assignment. We were to write our spelling words 2 times each and have one of our parents sign it and bring it back to school the next day. Since I was a people pleaser, I was also by default a teacher pleaser so I really wanted to get this right. Anxiety crept in. What if I wrote my spelling words and then something happened on the way to school, what if I lost them? What if some big kid stole my assignment on the school bus? What if it just vanished into thin air? If that happened then I would have to face my teacher. In my six-year-old mind that was a fate worse than death. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone being disappointed in me, so I began to devise a plan. I would do the assignment twice, have my mom sign both copies that way I would have another one just in case, ready to go in the event that something happened to the first one. This may have been my first, but certainly not last contingency plan.
So that is exactly what I did, and it was foolproof until I hit one big snag. I took the papers to my mom to have her sign them and after looking them over, she immediately asked,
“Jennifer (not Jenny, so I knew this was serious) this is two copies of the same thing. Why do you need me to sign them both?”
I then tried to explain that it was in case I lost one before I got to school in the morning. I thought it was a great plan; she thought it was crazy and told me that she would only sign only one. I was devastated. I placed the one signed paper in my book bag, double checked it in the morning and couldn’t get to school fast enough to turn it in.
The same issues I had at six continued into my adult life. Fear was by far my biggest motivation in every decision I made; fear of disappointing someone, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of losing someone I loved.
I became a Christian when I was 10 years old. I remember walking the aisle and falling on my knees at the altar knowing for sure that I was a sinner and fearing that if I didn’t do something I would spend eternity in hell. That night I trusted Christ to save me from my sins which was huge, but looking back I didn’t trust Him with much of anything else. Everything was up to me and my own efforts. The only person I really trusted was myself.
Trusting Him fully would come later.
I wonder if any of you can relate? Feeling like what is on the outside quite doesn’t match the inside? I tried so hard to mimic the peace and joy that I saw in others. People who knew me probably thought I was someone who for the most part had it together but on the inside I was often an anxious mess. I spent many late nights talking to my husband about different situations that were bothering me and he would always say, “Worrying doesn’t do any good, just trust God, there is nothing you can do about this” Countless times at church I had heard, “take your burdens to the foot of the cross and leave them there.” But how do you learn to stop laying them down at the cross only to pick them up over and over again. I desperately wanted the answer.
In March of 2011 two lines on a pregnancy test would begin a journey where I would finally get the answers my soul needed.