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Tell it to your children

Updated: Apr 22, 2022

My kids are just getting to the ages where boyfriends/girlfriends are a fascinating topic… and they don’t really understand it. So, I have an eager audience when I retell the love story of their parents. Today, my son said, “You and Daddy only dated for 9 months!?” He realized the magic behind our love story. Afterall, this love story isn’t just our love story, it’s our kids story, too. The beauty and enormity in that truth leaves me awestruck.

There is another really cool part of our story that my kids are not quite old enough to hear. Well, their mother is not ready to tell them, anyway. But, it is so cool that I have to share it with you.

In early high school, I made a list of qualities that my ideal husband would have. He had to meet these qualifications. I knew I was worthy of the most wonderful man.

Fast forward a few years, insecurity, bad choices, and a lostness began to overshadow my self worth. I believe this season of my life can be summed up by Ephesians 4:27, “I gave the devil a foothold.” I threw my “husband list” out the window and began dating men simply because they were interested in me, not because I was interested in them. My advice on College Dating is to be wary because these boys like everyone… Freedom + Pretty girl. I was not special to them. I was just a new pretty face.

I was devastated when my first college boyfriend broke up with me. This reaction took me by surprise because I was not emotionally involved with this young man. You see, I couldn’t allow myself to be emotionally involved because insecurity put up a wall around my heart. There was no way I would let someone see the real, yucky me. So, why was I devastated?

This rejection highlighted the way I already felt about myself. I was unworthy. There was nothing special about me, no one would ever pursue me.

(But, God! He can make beauty from wretches. God used my negative self-view to protect me from giving my heart away. God turned my ashes into beauty. My heart was fully reserved for my one and only love, my husband, my prince, the only man I have given my heart to!)

Fast forward several years when I am a healthy senior in college; spiritually, emotionally, and physically. At the end of a date with my boyfriend of 3 months, he said he needed to ask me something. He said that during prayer, God told him I battled an eating disorder.

I was speechless. This was a secret. No one knows this. This revelation is exposing my true, authentic, guarded imperfections.

God told him?! …God wanted this man to know my darkest secret.

Why did God want that?! …God wanted me to know that He loves me deeply, no matter what I have done to His creation.

God loved me through this man. I barely knew this man, yet his heart hurt when he imagined me struggling with my own self-worth. This man’s heart is protective over mine.

Through this supernatural experience, I felt, for the first time, how wide, high, long, and deep the love of Christ is. The love Christ has for me. I felt it through this man. I knew it. I finally got it.

Ephesians 3:18

God gave me this man of God so that I would never forget the love He has for me. The overflowing, constant outpouring of His love.

I am eagerly anticipating the day when I can share this story with my girls. God gave Hampton and I this divine experience so that the reality of God’s love for us will be passed down to our children and their children. I desire more than anything for my children to know their worth. That they are worthy of respect, kindness, and the outpouring love of our Saviour.

I hope this encourages you to reflect on your own stories and how they can be passed down to impact your children. “You are worth more than rubies!” Proverbs 31:10. All you have gone through, the good, the bad, the yucky, God can turn it into beauty and leave a legacy of love.

Legacy – Marriage Vows – To Have and to Hold


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