My Life is Forever Changed.

"There is the crooked that God causes and the crooked that we create for ourselves and God allows. We make mistakes, blunders, messes. We can create disorder, chaos, sadness, and suffering by breaking God's instructions concerning how life is to be lived. Yet He who is in control over all things says, concerning the seemingly crooked that He has made or the crooked we have caused, "All things work together for good to them that love God..."

This is probably the hardest blog I have ever written. I debated on whether or not I should post it, but after much prayer, I have continually felt an incessant tugging at my spirit to post it. So here I am. This makes me very vulnerable, but I suppose I am no more vulnerable than how I have been feeling the last few days..now that my “big secret” is out. I am sure plenty of you have seen a comment or two pop up in your news feed on facebook, maybe even snickered to yourself or had to pick your jaw up off of the ground due to complete and utter shock. When I first found this all out, I worried so much about what other people would say and how I would be judged, but now, quite frankly, I don’t care. I really don’t anymore. I am reminded by scripture that Jesus was condemned in His time, as well, and as Christians in this world, we too, will be persecuted. I prayed and prayed that once this was all “out” that Marlon and I would have an incredible support system and that people would encourage us, lift us up, and pray for us. And so far, that is exactly what has happened. God is good! And now I am starting to get excited. Excited about this new blessing, excited about spending the rest of my life with Marlon, and excited about all that God has in store for us. But, that wasn’t always the case. SO, here is my blog that I wrote in the very beginning…many weeks ago. It is painful, raw, true, and real. Keep that in mind as you read along.

Contraceptives, magazines, music, and media attempt to provide excuses to justify impurities. Every day people are inundated with messages that shout “if it feels good just do it.” What society fails to recognize though, is that there is no such thing as a condom to protect the heart.

And that is why after all the ups and downs and twists and turns in my life, after all of the heart breaks and failed romances, I knew I had to make my relationship with Marlon different. WE , together, decided that we wanted to strive to start our relationship off the right way; God’s way. So, we chose to practice celibacy. We made this choice based upon our faith, God's word, and our strong desire to wait until marriage to share that special moment.

But we weren't perfect. In ONE moment of weakness, our world changed. The enemy was relentless, and one day in early May, we gave into the desires of our flesh. And in that moment everything suddenly changed. We just didn't know it at the time.

Immediately, we both felt guilty. We repented, prayed together, and tried to get back on track with God. And we did. In the interim, we both went back to our normal every day routines. He with work/working out/everything else and me with work and finishing up my Master's program.

As an aside, I am so thankful that we serve a mighty God. A God of opportunity and second chances. Because the minute, no the SECOND, we repent of our sins, we are instantly forgiven. That’s the beauty of His grace. We certainly don’t deserve it, but I am so thankful that He gives it to us anyway!

I had to remind myself of that when it came to letting my own sins go. Because even before I committed my sin, the lamb was already slain. Of course the devil would try to convict me of my sin over and over again in my mind, but I knew better. I knew that I wasn’t bound by what I had done anymore. So that incident had been long erased from my mind. I was already covered by the blood of Jesus, so I didn't need to keep beating myself up over it.

Let it go.

So I did. And everything was fine. For awhile. But I kept thinking to myself, what if I am pregnant?

Immediately, I thought about how silly that thought was to even entertain. How could I be pregnant? I did not believe that there was any way for that to be humanly possible. At ALL.

It’s probably just stress. I told myself. After all, I just graduated, and now I have to find a career job, and then I am going to have to move. Stress. That’s probably what it is.

“Are you okay?” asked one of my friends.

“What is wrong with you?” asked another.

I had been unusually quiet and withdrawn lately, avoiding people, & kind of keeping to myself.

I assured them that I was. But inside, I wasn’t okay. Because in my heart I knew. I had this feeling I couldn‘t shake. A feeling that would not go away.

It was towards the end of the week, a Thursday, I think. I decided that I couldn’t sit around and not know anymore because the feeling of not knowing was worse than knowing once and for all. So I did it. I made a trip to a pharmacy a few miles down the street. A trip that would literally change my life forever.

What kind do I get? Should I get the E.P.T. or chance the off brand? Did I want one test or two tests? I decided the off brand would suffice just fine and that I would definitely need two just in case. Just in case what? I kept battling back and forth in the deep recesses of my mind.

I grabbed the box and shamefully walked to the front counter. The clerk greeted me with a smile and started small talking with me. I tried to crack a smile back, but it was fake and anything but genuine. I watched her lips move but wasn’t listening to the words that she was saying. How could the cashier calmly check me out when my life was about to change forever? Didn’t she have the slightest clue?

I hurriedly left the store and walked to my car with my head down. Did I really just go in there and buy a pregnancy test? Me? Seriously?

The drive back to my apartment seemed forever long. As soon as I opened the door, I headed straight to the bathroom. No one knew that I had the tests. Not even Marlon.

I took a deep breath and cracked open the box, fumbling with the instructions and trying to read along without freaking out. I decided that I would have to do the pee-in-the-cup method because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking long enough to steadily hold the little white stick.

I held my breath and dipped the test.

What if…..?

Before the test was even fully submerged, I saw it. Those two little blue lines. And I froze. That moment is forever emblazoned in my mind. Because time stopped. I couldn't blink. I felt sick. Nauseated, even.

That can't be right. It must be a mistake. I tore open the second test and dunked it. Positive again. How could this be?

I was 26, unmarried, and had just graduated with my Masters degree. I wasn’t even in my career yet or where I wanted to be in life. This has to be a joke.

For several days I pretended as if that day had never happened, as if it was just some figment of my expansive imagination. I tossed and turned in bed at night for days on end..thinking that maybe, just maybe this was all just a bad dream that I would soon wake up from..that I would soon return back to my state of "normal."

Falling fast, the feeling of overwhelming confusion and shock. The fear of responsibility. Fear of time. Fear of change. Fear of judgment. What will my friends think? What will my family think? What will people say? I just graduated. I can't be a mom. I'm not ready. Not now. Not yet. Not til Marlon and I are married!

I had worked hard to make my life “look perfect.” I had a check list and a to-do list for everything. I wore my badges of college honors graduate…and now Masters degree graduate with honor. I prided myself for being a person that other people could look up to.

And then, at 26, I committed the “ultimate sin:“ a pregnancy out of wedlock. And I was a devout Christian at that. Sure, an unplanned pregnancy may be fine if you happen to be Kim Kardashian. But in the real world of stigmas and stereotypes, being unmarried and pregnant is not exactly a glamorous thing.

Reality is different.

Reality is judgment, reality is the assumption that brains and pregnancy do not co-exist, reality is the moment when you realize that you can’t tie a pretty red bow on this one or make it go away.

I felt as if my world had suddenly collapsed, as if I couldn’t accomplish my dreams. The thought of achieving my goals had just been flushed down the toilet. Everything I worked towards, was gone. Meaningless. Panic, Hysteria. Shock.

Then, the guilt crept in. Guilt is a God-given feeling, which brings our mistakes and faults to the forefront of our minds. It is a bitter reminder of our sins and bad choices, exposing our straying away from God's intended path for our future. Shame, on the other hand, is not from God.

While guilt can convict us to repent and confess our sins to receive God's forgiveness, shame drives us away from Him into more darkness. Shame can fool you into thinking that you are too far away for God's loving embrace.

And in that moment, the shame of this whole situation was too much to bear. The enemy was winning. Not because he is more powerful than God, but because I was letting him.

I was angry. This isn't fair, God. Out of ALL the times that WE chose the right thing, out of all the times that we DIDN'T give in to the desires of our flesh, the one time we do...this is what happens? How is that fair, God?

Then I started comparing myself to other people…something you shouldn’t do (but in the heat of the moment, I did it anyway). Why did this happen to me, God? How is it fair that the very people who will probably judge me…have had sex themselves (before marriage) and the only reason they DIDN’T get pregnant like me..is because they took birth control? Or the morning after pill? How is it fair that some people took the “easy way out” and chose death over life by having an abortion? Tell me, God, how is that fair?

Silence. No answer.

I felt so disconnected. After all, this unidentified human set up shop in MY BODY completely uninvited. The nausea, the morning sickness, the surge of hormones, all of the changes. I didn’t sign up for it.

I felt so alone. Marlon was there, and I was here. And no one knew. Who could I tell? I hadn’t even accepted it yet. How could I possibly open up to anyone else, when I couldn’t even deal with it myself?

Fast forward to my first doctor's appointment. Marlon went with me.

My doctor came in and the first thing he said was, “Congratulations on your surprise!”

How could he possibly be congratulating me right now? This didn’t exactly feel like the cake-eating, balloon throwing, aw-you-shouldn’t-have surprise. It was more of the ohmygod-this-can’t-be-happening, not-yet-not-now surprise.

“You may feel some coldness and a little bit of pressure.“
Blah. Blah. Blah. Whatever you say…just get it over with already!
And just like that, it happened. They were doing the trans-vaginal ultrasound. He explained to me that the TV monitor on the wall wasn’t working, so I would have to sort of sit up a bit to try to see.

He looked around on the screen..and I looked, too. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

Well, I don’t either! See! I knew I wasn’t pregnant! I knew this was all just a dream!

He kept moving the wand around. “Ah-ha! There it is! It was hiding.”

I looked at the monitor. I still didn’t see what he was talking about. I mean, yeah, I saw this tiny little speck, thing, but that could be anything, right?

The nurse printed off the ultra sound picture and handed it to me.

I must have looked at that picture a hundred times while the nurse took 6 tubes of blood to run 123412341234 tests. Prenatal tests, she called them. But I still couldn’t process it. I kept staring at the photo. It was blank. There was nothing visible and certainly not anything that even remotely resembled an embryo.

And then I blanked out.

I walked out of that doctor’s office with Marlon trailing behind me, calling my name, asking me if I was okay. I abruptly pressed the down button for the elevator. No, I’m not okay, I thought. And then the tears fell. Hard. Painfully hard. Not the tears that you cry when you watch a good lovey dovey chick flick with a happily-ever-after ending. No. These were the kind of tears that you cry when you feel as though your world is about to collapse, when your heart feels completely broken and in pieces, when your life feels like it is in shambles. It’s the kind of cry that is seemingly impossible to recover from. And those tears? They kept falling. Like a water fall, staining my face, smearing my mascara, blurring my vision. For days. For weeks. And I just couldn’t make them stop.