It was my oldest daughter’s fifth birthday. She had asked if she could go to McDonalds with just mommy. I brought her two younger sisters who would turn three, three months later, and one and a half years old, to a relative’s house. As I sat in a booth looking at my newly turned five year old girl, I began to cry. The tears came out of nowhere. My daughter asked me what was wrong, and I told her mommy was crying because she was growing up so fast. To be honest, though, it wasn’t only that, but it was the first time I could remember mourning that I wouldn’t have any more babies. I had given birth to three daughters in three and a half years, and my ex-husband, their dad, and I decided we would make a pretty permanent decision to make it so we couldn’t. At the time we made and completed this pivotal choice, I was 23 and still pregnant with our youngest, and she was born a week and a half later. The last thing I was thinking about was ever having another baby, but now, looking at my oldest baby girl sitting across the table from me, it seemed to be the first time it really hit me. My season of having babies was over. My mind had reasoned that it was the best choice for us, but I realized in this moment my heart had not.
Not long after that, I had a regular checkup with my nurse practitioner at the hospital in our hometown. I went up to the third floor and got off the elevator opening to the same place I went for my doctors appointments when I was pregnant with my three daughters. Everything looked exactly the same as it always had been, but now I had no baby inside me, and there wouldn’t ever be again. As I waited in the waiting room and went through the motions of checking in and going back to see my doctor for my appointment, I stuffed the feelings of nostalgia perhaps remembering for one of the first times all those moms and grandmothers before me quoting words said so often “they grow up so fast. Enjoy it! Before you know it, this time will be gone.” After my appointment, I got into the elevator, and the nurse midwife that had delivered all three of my daughters had also stepped inside. She looked at me and said hi and asked how I was doing. Those tears came out of nowhere once again. The feelings I was trying so desperately to cram down deep inside me, so I wouldn’t have to feel them, began spilling out, and I couldn’t help it. I answered through tears that I was having a really hard time with the fact that I wasn’t going to have any more babies. She looked at me and said something that I have never forgotten. She said “well we all have seasons in our lives. We have them, and then without realizing it, that season is gone, and you move into the next. Your season of having babies is over, and it’s time to move on to the next one, and that’s ok because we can’t stay in it forever. It has to end so you can move on to the next one. Each one has its purpose and time. If you stay in the season of having babies, you can’t move forward and enjoy the ones ahead. It has to end at some point for everyone, and that’s ok.” I don’t think she knew how much I needed those words she said to me that day, but looking back, I believe God did. He put the woman whose face was the first they saw and whose hands were the first to hold all three of my babies and guide them into this world in the elevator with me that day. Maybe God arranged circumstances for her to be there in that moment to give me those words that have stayed with me all of these years. I’m not sure, but it gave me the love and comfort that I didn’t know I needed during that time in my life.
In Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 NLT God talks about the different seasons of life and He names them.
[1] For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. [2] A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. [3] A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. [4] A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. [5] A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. [6] A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. [7] A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. [8] A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. [9] What do people really get for all their hard work? [10] I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. [11] Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. [12] So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. [13] And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. [14] And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. [15] What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again. [https://bible.com/bible/116/ecc.3.1-15.NLT]
I was recently reminded of the time in the elevator with my midwife that delivered my daughters while talking with one of my very close friends. She is eleven years younger than me and she and her husband have a seven year old son and a one and a half year old daughter who will turn two in four months. We were catching up on what is going on in our lives over the phone and she was sharing how she was feeling like she wanted to have another baby, but her and her husband were not on the same page about it. She wasn’t declaring that she absolutely wanted to have another child, but more sharing with him the feelings of a wondering and possibility if they did. It was just thoughts wandering in her mind if their family was complete. What if there is a child that is missing that is meant to take up a space in her heart? As she shared this with me, I began to think of the moment in the elevator all those years before I met my friend and the woman that handed down these pivotal words of wisdom to me. Now those words were coming back for me to hand them to her. It made me smile with tears at the same time, just realizing the love God has for the both of us. The love and intentionality of placing the woman who would encourage and comfort me that day in the elevator and knowing there would be a specific time I would repeat them to my friend when she needed them. One day there will be a woman who God places in front of her to give to her those words to hand down to another generation.
I was nineteen when I got married and started my journey of motherhood. Now my kids are grown. Starting out as a young mom, I had so many promises I made to myself that I would do better, be better and be the perfect and best mom. I would certainly do it perfectly just like the experts said I should. I would never get angry. I would never spank them and I would never tell them no. I would be their biggest supporters and I would always make sure they would feel loved. I would be that perfect pinterest mom before pinterest even existed, who had all the answers, baked with and did crafts with them. I would take them outside to play and enjoy every moment we spent together and they would have the best childhood memories to look back on. I would fight all the mothers before me in my life, defending the current generations parenting rules to follow to raise perfect children, when they said “well that’s not how I did it with my kids and they are still alive and made it.” Living in a constant fight in my mind that I was messing up all over the place because I’m not doing it how they did it and am completely failing at the ways I’m supposed to be a perfect mom.
All these years later as I look back on my seasons of parenting, I certainly was not perfect. I did none of the things I promised I would do differently. There were so many ways I tried to do my best. I brought them to church so they would know God, but I wasn’t a good example to them of a mother who had the love of God inside of her. I didn’t show love to them like Jesus does to others. I didn’t admit when I was wrong and through the years, I became very angry and bitter about things that had nothing to do with my kids. I went to church every Sunday. I went through the motions and I put on my church face in front of others for the rest of the world around me to see. In pictures, in church and in front of others, it looked like the perfect life with our perfect marriage and family. Our perfect home worthy to be photographed and jobs that we had prayed for. My kids for the most part obeyed, in front of me anyway and only for the sake of possibly some peace in me not nit picking them on every little thing.
In Matthew 15:13-20 NLT, Jesus explains to his disciples about a heart that is not truly submitted and surrendered to God.
[13] Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, [14] so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.” [15] Then Peter said to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable that says people aren’t defiled by what they eat.” [16] “Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked. [17] “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. [18] But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. [19] For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. [20] These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”
I was not the perfect mom that I set out to be, but by God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness, he redeemed my life and my relationship with my daughters that otherwise would have been lost had I kept going my own way. I had the head knowledge that I needed God and he was my heavenly father, but that was as far as it went. God used the demise of my twenty year marriage to their father as a means to rip out the bitter roots that had been planted in my heart. Roots so deep from hurts and wounds from long ago in my childhood. Many that went unaddressed from my ex-husband. I had “forgiven” many things as that was the Christian thing to do, but I did not address or process the ways I had been hurt. I just said the right words that “I forgave” and stuffed the feelings I needed to take to God way down inside of me.
There were many ways that God tried to humble me through others He placed in my life. I was full of so much pride. I always had to be right, I never could admit that I was wrong and I rarely apologized. I struggled with the need to have control in almost every area of my life and I battled with an eating disorder for many years because of it. Many times I said whatever words immediately popped into my mind and spilled them out like vomit with no thought as to how they may hurt others. I hated myself and I didn’t understand why. I didn’t really want to be that way, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I did everything in my power to remedy my flaws on my own and then the landslide that was my life came down.
God did not cause my ex-husband to leave. He has free will and he chose to use it. I had no control that he didn’t love me or want to be with me and for the ways he hurt me when he left and times throughout our marriage. I could not make him choose me and want to stay and work though things with the help of God like we had done before. God used the worst and most painful time in my life to humble me, to help me forgive people who cut me so deeply and to heal me from the inside out. My pain that I begged him to take away brought me closer to Him. The thing about pride is, if you are prideful, you don’t know it. God will try and tell you in other ways, but many times we are so full of our own thoughts and ways with confidence in what we think we know that we can’t see or hear God’s voice through others or circumstances in our lives. We tend to think better of ourselves than we really are and can be unwilling to hear advice from others because we haven’t learned to truly listen. I didn’t open my Bible or know God’s word, because I never understood it, but suddenly I now craved His words that began healing my heart.
I look back on the seasons of my life and am able to rest to enjoy the one I’m in right now. God not only redeemed my life and relationship with my daughters, He gave me the life I prayed for and more. I took the Lord’s hand on a journey of healing where my pain allowed him access to my heart to heal the most broken pieces. He allowed the broken pieces to be healed, but still be seen. He moved me and my youngest daughter 1,700.2 miles away from Vermont where I was born and raised my children to Louisiana three years after my ex husband left. He brought us to our new church family where I met my husband who I married on December 30, 2023. After a long four year journey of healing, God showed me the man that I prayed for. He was everything and more than I could have imagined just like the Lord promised me. He is a Godly man that is loyal and I will never have to wonder if he really loves me. I can trust him and I will never have to wonder if I’m good enough for him. I will never have to wonder if he is cheating on me. He has been hurt in some of the same ways and he knows how much those things hurt, so he won’t do those things. From all the miles between God brought me to my new home in Louisiana long before I ever met my husband. God had a redemption plan in place all along. He healed me and He showed me how to trust Him and He strengthened me and built my faith. It certainly wasn’t easy. There were days I cried and thought I would never make it, but God held on to me because I held on to him. I realized He had always been with me. He had always wanted my heart. He completely healed my heart and soul and gave it to a man that He knew would care for it like He does because my husband loves the Lord more than he loves me. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and God answers prayers. I’m living breathing proof.
In this season of my life, I am happy. The smile on my face isn’t fake with pain behind it. I think back on my life up until now and I see where God was with me through every moment even when I couldn’t see him. Like the wind blowing or when the sun hits my face on a summer day, I feel Him with me. He always has been and I trust and have faith that He always will be. This season looks different. My daughters are grown and have their own lives. They’re supposed to and that’s a good thing. My youngest daughter who will be twenty one next month lives with my husband and I here in Louisiana. She is entering her Junior year of college to become an elementary education teacher and she works part time at a Christian learning center from birth to five years old. My middle daughter is twenty two and my oldest daughter is twenty four. My stepson, their older brother who is twenty-seven and his daughter, my granddaughter who will be nine next month. I also have a foster daughter who came to live with us when she was fifteen and she is twenty-one and her kids, my grandson who is three and half and his little sister who is four months old; all live in Vermont.
Three thirty this morning as I sat next to my oldest daughter in the overstuffed chair in our living room, I held her hand and I hugged her tight and I thanked God for the twelve days I had with her visiting Louisiana. I held her and I cried knowing we would be loading her luggage into the car soon to bring her to the airport for her early flight back to Vermont with 1,700.2 miles separating us again. My middle daughter had come to visit as well, but she had come for four days instead of the twelve. I hugged her and said I love her and I’m praying for her even though she says that’s not her thing.
In this season, motherhood looks different than it has in past seasons. God says in his word in Matthew 16:24-26 NLT
[24] Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [25] If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. [26] And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?
And in
Matthew 10:37-39 NLT
[37] “If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. [38] If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. [39] If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.
When the Lord revealed to me he wanted me to move to Louisiana on February 1st, 2022, after a month long fast, He asked me on New Years Eve only a month before if He asked me to take up my cross and leave everything I know and love and follow him, would I do it? I without hesitation said yes. I planned on visiting Louisiana in the summer again with my friend that’s from here just like I had for the first time the summer before. I felt like my youngest daughter was supposed to come visit with me, but God had a different plan for her and I. First the Lord reminded me of the question he had asked me on New Years Eve and then revealed to me through the Book of Ruth in the Bible that he wanted me to not just visit Louisiana, but move there, When I shared with my youngest daughter what I felt like God was asking me to do, she said “mom, no way. I feel like God is speaking to me about moving there too.” We hadn’t even discussed with each other about what we felt like God was telling us, but he had spoken to each of us separately except with her, he used the story of Jonah in the Bible. As I look back to two years ago today where we left on our journey to the unknown in Louisiana, I’m reminded of the faith it took to get here. I’m reminded of the provision and doors opened for us leading us here promising that even though it made no earthly sense to anyone around us, He gave us a knowing and an ability to trust Him that no matter what, Louisiana was where we were supposed to be. As it says in Matthew 10:37-39 and in Matthew 16:24-26 we are not to love our father or mother or son or daughter more than we love God. He says that unless we take up our cross and follow Him and not hold on to the life we know and love, we cannot be His disciples. This means if I disobeyed God and stayed in the same place I had always been, I would miss all the blessings He had waiting for me in the seasons ahead. The blessings he had for me were tied to other people that he would put in my life. Staying in Vermont where I was comfortable wouldn’t just affect me, but everyone who was tied to my obedience and story of redemption and healing. My youngest daughter was supposed to move here too and naturally, if I didn’t go, then she wouldn’t either. It’s easy to say the word yes to God, not knowing what that really meant and that I really would have to take up my cross and follow him to the unknown., but it’s harder to let go of the life I planned and let go of my kids and grandchildren and friends that I would leave behind. If I held on to my life and my kids and grandchildren, then I would lose it. I had to leave the life I thought I had behind. I had to trust God to take care of my daughters without me close by. It was so painful, but I trusted God with his promises and every day he provided me with the faith I needed to move forward. Each step of faith and obedience here led to another door opened towards our new home so far away from the place we had always known.
On May 5th 2022 little over a month before we moved to Louisanna, on my middle daughter’s birthday, I went to a worship night I was invited to with a few girlfriends at a church I didn’t normally attend in New Hampshire only twenty five minutes from us. There was a mother and grown daughter with her baby there who I noticed and later after the worship was over, the mother came up to me and asked me if she could give me a word from the Lord. I will never forget this. She said “God wants you to know that he has your kids and your family and everyone you’re praying for. He will take care of them. It’s ok. Trust Him. He wants you to know it’s ok.” This woman didn’t know me. Her daughter didn’t know me or that I was getting ready to say goodbye to my kids and grandkids and my mom and dad and my sister and my brother and my nieces and my friends and rest of my family, but God did and He put that woman there to give me the words I needed to let me know that he is still with me and that he is taking care of me and everyone I love. He knew my heart and He knew it was hurting because I was having to leave everyone behind. He knew it was hardest to let my kids go, but he comforted me and I felt so loved and seen by Him that night.
In this season, I held my girls outside the airport and prayed through tears knowing that even though I had them with me here to visit for a short time all in the same house together again, I would have to let them go again. To live their lives, to go back to seeing their faces through the phone and not knowing when I would be able to physically hug them again. My time with them now and moments in between our visits, I am reminded of the years that have just as promised gone by so fast. I think of my midwife who gave me that advice in the elevator that day and am reminded that her seasons in life ended here on earth when she went home with Jesus after her battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. All those lives, God used her hands to guide into this world, and she passed on to her next season in heaven in the most perfect place. As I continue on the journey of the seasons through my life, I will hold on to the wisdom she gave me that day and share it. The seasons of our lives don’t last forever. We don’t know a season is over until it is. We don’t know the last time is the last time until after it happens. I will enjoy the season I’m in right now, and there will be more to come. I trust that God is with me through every one.
Copyright ©️ Jennifer Lyn Fletcher
Honest Journey 