Shaken.

I'm quite possibly the most insecure person there ever was.
I'll admit it, I'm embarrassed that I'm 23.
I'm kind of ashamed that I'm married with 2 kids while everyone else my age is establishing a career and adopting 23 cats a week.
I feel really weird talking to old friends. We have nothing in common anymore.
And I can't stand feeling like everyone thinks I'm inadequate and unprepared for what my life is.
I feel awkward in my own skin.

But I shouldn't.
It's very easy for me to forget just how incredible it is that things worked out.
My children are pretty healthy.
We have a roof over our heads.
My husband is wonderful.
We have money to pay bills and even some extra.

It wasn't always like this.
Little S was born 4 months after Big S and I got married.
If you can't do the math, I was not married before I got pregnant.
I was 20 and in college.
I had to drop out.
I left and lost almost all my friends.
I was broken.

I probably stopped praying once I got to high school.
And I didn't pray again until I left that doctor's appointment with Big S holding my hand. I knew that telling him I was pregnant was going to be the most devastating thing that could possibly come out of my mouth.
Neither of us had jobs.
We still had more than 2 years left of college.
But we made the decision to make it work, forever and always.

We made it work when Big S decided to drop out of school.
We made it work when we decided we wanted to have another baby, as soon as Little S turned one.
We made it work when Big S lost his job not even a week after finding out I was pregnant.
We made it work when we both had to work opposite schedules.
We made it work when Rae had 2 vessel cord and there was so much uncertainty.
We made it work when we thought Rae had the same heart defect as Big S.
We're making it work, but not without help.

I have set the Lord always before me. He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Psalm 16:8

I have fallen hard, and I've fallen often.
But what's the most important, is whose feet I've fallen to.

None of this was an accident.
Every single struggle, every mistake, every triumph, every moment of bliss is God's work in my life. There's no question that every failure I've had was to bring me back to Him.
I've had many, many people tell me that getting pregnant before being married was not what God wanted for me.
But they'd be wrong.
I needed to fail.
I needed to have the rug torn out from under me.
I needed to collapse and lose everything I thought I wanted.
Because everything I wanted was nothing at all what I actually needed.

What I need isn't a mentor.
It isn't a strong marriage.
It isn't 2 beautiful children.
It isn't a roof over our heads.
It isn't money in the bank.
What I need is my Savior.

Then the rest falls into place.

M