Navigating life as a single mama the last four YEARS.

When you get hit with a curve ball like infidelity, divorce and starting a brand-new life, one you didn’t ask for but embraced nonetheless there are quite a few obvious grievances. The death of a dream, the life you thought you’d have for the rest of your life, life as you knew it? Gone. Your life is now a blank page in the hands of writer without a vision because the vision that was built came crashing down.

But we hear about those grievances that shake our worlds, that feel like death itself.

But there was so much more I grieved behind closed doors, there was many things that caused me to sob until I couldn’t see clearly while taking my children for a drive after hitting the McDonalds drive thru for French fries and a movie playing on the DVD. What they will grow up believing was a fun night drive in the car was me trying to distract them so they couldn’t see their mama cry.

Grieving not just the betrayal, not just the dream, but her very identity. Wife? Daughter in-law? Stay at home mama? Homeschool mama? That woman was no longer.

Who was I if I wasn’t a wife? The thought of being anywhere but home with her children was so unimaginable the thought made her sick to her stomach. And I realize now that perhaps those titles were an idol in my life. Who was I if I wasn’t?

Four years ago I didn’t know. But that summed up the first year of my life as a single mom. Figuring out who I was now and realizing that before anything else I’m firstly a loved daughter of God. everything else has to be secondary because one thing I learned over the last few years was that my identity as a daughter of God was the only identity that was certain and always will be and when that identity is fully in Jesus you’ll be able to stand when all the other identities come crashing down.

I’ll never share their father’s story, His why. His reasonings. Honestly, it’s not mine to share. I’ve always felt that way.

But I also have a story. And I believe in sharing it. Because I have seen victims become victors by reading about the ones that went before them that ended in victorious redemption and how they to started out as a victim.

And if my story can equip, encourage, make you feel seen and most importantly remind you of our faithful God in the midst of ashes. Sharing my story was worth every minute writing.

I have full physical custody of my girls with very little visitation and with that I always have some of my children with me at all times as he doesn’t take them all together when he does have visits.

Which means everyday responsibility of raising them from school, meals, appointments, asthma attacks, discipline, laundry, emotions, working to make sure bills are paid and everything in between is all on me.

Rarely do I feel like I’m crushing it.

Most days I’m staring at a mountain of laundry wondering how all of us ladies can possibly create that much dirty laundry in such a short time.

And I’m learning to be okay with it.

Because for a long time I had felt like I couldn’t enjoy life until everything was done, maybe it was my way of controlling what I could however, I lost a lot of life waiting to live until my life was in order and I missed out on a part of my children’s childhood that I will never get back.

When the reality is, my children don’t need to be surrounded by perfection, and neither do I.

They need a mama who loves them fiercely, guides them intentionally, listens intently, and shows up no matter what.

So, this mama needed to give herself some grace.

In the last four years of being a single mama, I learned some things.

That I can’t be a mama without first being a daughter of God whose strength is made perfect in my weakness.

I learned that I wasn’t a bad mom for letting my children have too much screen time and take out during the early years of single motherhood. It was a season of me figuring things out and though breaking these habits are a pain like no one’s business and I do regret giving everyone electronics at the same time that post partum, newly single mama did what she had to do to survive and she has grace for that.

I’m in my next phase of motherhood now, I’m not a victim. I don’t make choices from a place of brokenness.

Instead, I’m rebuilding, I’m healing, growing in my faith and learning that peace comes from within and not found in what surrounds me. Things around me do not have to be perfect before I enjoy today. I don’t have it all figured out. I never will honestly. But I can take one day at a time, figuring things out day by day, moment by moment and learn to find peace outside of what I can’t control.

I’m learning to live the life in front of me. I’m learning to enjoy the life in front of me instead of constantly worrying about the life

“I should have already”

And maybe no matter what season you are in that is something we can learn together.