In 2017, I had finally accepted the fact that it would just be my son and I until God said otherwise. And its amazing that in the same year that I decided to give up on love...God blessed me with a partner that I would eventually grow with and marry three years later. So here I am, now a blended family of five. When I reflect back on my life, especially memories from my past, I am thankful that God has flooded my family and I with an outpouring amount of blessings.
I was 21 when I became pregnant with my son and I was over a thousand miles away from home living in Colorado Springs, CO. I had no clue as to how to navigate and take on motherhood. I'm an active duty Army Soldier, and so I was that female soldier who became pregnant shortly after arriving to my first duty station. I believe I was only assigned to my unit for six months before becoming pregnant with my son. His father was also a soldier, we met while in processing at the Ft. Carson installation. We are both from Florida and so that one shared similarity is what connected us to the hip, making us almost inseparable. However, when I reflect back on our relationship, the relationship was destined to fail based on our choices and actions that led us to becoming parents together.
Moreover, I have grown to accept the fact that as a young woman, I made poor choices that led me to raising my son alone. Accountability. It took years for me to view how my life had turned out from a different perspective. I had compromised my future by choosing to sleep with someone who I knew nothing about. And although we developed an intent to marry...he was indeed not my husband...I was not his wife. And so there I was as a young woman left to bare the struggle of raising a child while continuing to serve. Life was rough and as much as I wanted to carry the bitterness, hate and anger in my heart towards my child's father; I had to accept the fact that I ultimately had more power than I led myself to believe. As a woman, I negated from that power by not taking my time and ensuring that we were truly compatible. Standards. Women often compromise their standards to experience any form of love and acceptance from a man. That was me, and as we parted ways, it took years for me to accept that the idea of a family with him would never exist.
I share this story as a way to encourage single mothers that there is hope for finding true love IF you allow it and learn to accept love when God puts it right in front of you. I spent years sabotaging relationships out of fear that I was not good enough. My past experiences with love had tainted my attitude on love and affected my ability to love properly. I was equally toxic as the men that I had chose to date. I wanted a family so gravely but I was not in a mentally fit state and God knew. So before reconnecting and dating my husband, I took a lot of time to myself so that I could work on my emotional, physical and mental health. I wanted to be more stable in those areas before dating again. Being a single mother will test your strength, make you hard and though it may feel awarding and empowering to do it all alone: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.
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