The God of your youth never left you. The power that raised His Son from the dead lives inside you.
Sitting on a pew in a small Baptist church with two small children in tow, I was certain that everyone was staring at my un-ringed left hand, as a blinking sign flashed across my forehead that screamed “single mom.” It had been years since I had been in a church, and it took everything in me to load those two children into my car to drive to a local church that Sunday morning. The shame that weighed on my shoulders was almost unbearable. The loneliness mounted as I spent time estranged from my family, often spending weeks with no hugs and little adult interaction. It was a far cry from where I thought I’d wind up.
I stumbled into that little church many times over the weeks that followed – desperate for relief from a broken heart. While still quite hesitant, I found a regular spot and allowed myself to get comfortable on my pew. One Sunday morning, not long thereafter, an older woman sat next to me and made polite small talk as she played with my small children. It wasn’t long before she asked the dreaded question, “Honey, where is your husband?” My face turned beet red as I began to sweat and avoid eye contact. I tentatively responded, “I don’t have one….” Her response? “Well, I guess that’s how they are doing things these days!” She crossed her arms, turned her back to me, and said not another word for the remainder of the service. She might as well have stripped me to my underwear and paraded me in front of the church because the humiliation was just the same. I sat in service with tears streaming down my face as I yearned for it to be over and literally jogged to my car immediately following service.
That was 25 years ago, and yet, in a moment, I can take myself back to feel the pain of those words and the reminder of how badly they stung me. Those two babies are now grown with children of their own, and those years of single motherhood are long behind me. But the Lord has allowed that experience, and many others, to shape me, consistently giving beauty where ashes once lay. Truthfully, what the woman said that day shouldn’t have put me over the edge, but it was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, as I had carried shame for so long. There was the shame of being sexually assaulted as a little girl. There was the shame of being raised without a mother, because mine had been killed. There was the shame of being raised by an alcoholic father who married six times. There was the shame of birthing two children outside of marriage, even though I had been a church girl most of my life. There was the shame of being a college dropout living in government-issued housing while utilizing food stamps and welfare to make ends meet. I was no stranger to shame.
The pain of my childhood was only exacerbated by the challenges faced in my single motherhood journey as I stumbled through the next several years, a young teen mom. I slowly learned to cook and clean. I learned to manage a tight budget while balancing two jobs and college at night. I learned to parent through the infant and toddler years. I found a new church, where I planted and grew in my walk with the Lord. In 1999, God spoke to me so clearly that the pain of my single parenting would one day be used for His glory. Now, you must understand that at this part of my story, I am a mess. I have no money, few friends, and even less hope. My parenting was questionable, and my spiritual life was askew. But I knew what the Lord had said. Only He could have done what He did in the years that followed.
I became a successful corporate executive who was able to move away from government assistance. I met and married a wonderful man (even though I’d convinced myself no good, Christian man would ever want me and my baggage). I left my corporate success and started a national nonprofit that has now served over one million single mothers over the last decade. God truly did give beauty where ashes once laid. He restored all things the locusts had eaten in a prior season. He placed my foot on solid ground, calling me back from the ends of the earth. He healed a broken heart that bled for years.
I don’t know that I could have learned all that I did, had I not gone through all that I endured. There was purpose in it all. And while many may write a letter to their younger self that includes ways to avoid the pain or to make better decisions that would save some heartache, I think my letter to my younger self may read a little differently.
Dear Younger Self,
You lay in a bathroom this early morning, contemplating taking your own life because the weight of it all seems unbearable. You hear your children in the other room, eating their Pop-Tarts and watching Saturday morning cartoons. You love them desperately, but you aren’t certain you can go on. You feel unseen, unheard, and unvalued. You feel invisible. You question why you repeatedly accept the mistreatment of a terrible relationship. And you wonder how you ended up here. This was certainly not where you dreamed of being – a young, single mom with no money in a dead-end job and a hopeless relationship. How will you endure? How can you parent alone for twenty years? How can you live from paycheck to paycheck, sometimes going to bed hungry, for years on end? How can you continue to drive a 1984 Mercury Lynx that will leave you roadside each week, taking a daily quart of oil just to make it to work? How many times can you rob your children’s piggy bank? How many times can you endure the ridicule of a small-town gossip vine? How many lies of the enemy will you believe?
Younger self, listen to me. Get up off that floor. You are not alone. The God of your youth never left you. The power that raised His Son from the dead lives inside you. The tears lasted a night, but joy is on its way. The challenge of having no money will one day be used to pull others from food stamps. The agony of loneliness will soon dissipate as God places you right, smack dab, in the middle of a spiritual family. The ache of feeling alone while you parent will be used to inspire many. You will hold the hands of hundreds of single moms who likewise feel alone, and you will teach them that the joy of the Lord is their strength. The shame you feel will be replaced with the confident hope of Jesus Christ. God will deliver you from unforgiveness, manipulation, and bitterness. He will dispel every lie of the enemy that tells you that you aren’t good enough.
Younger self, you are sharpening tools in an arsenal that will make you ready for spiritual battle one day. You are learning warfare strategies. You are learning endurance, perseverance, and stick-to-itiveness. You are learning faithfulness. You are learning that the faith of your mustard seed will move mountains. Your faith will become immovable and unshakable. You will one day teach the Bible with a passion that could have only been birthed from this hard place. The Lord is teaching you much on this bathroom floor, so just hang on.
Photo Credit: ©swn
Jennifer Maggio is a mom to three, wife to Jeff, and founder of the national nonprofit, The Life of a Single Mom Ministries. She is author to four books, including The Church and the Single Mom. She was named one of the Top 10 Most Influential People in America by Dr. John Maxwell in 2017 and 2015 and has appeared in hundreds of media venues, including The New York Times, Family Talk Radio with Dr. James Dobson, Joni and Friends, and many others.
