Teenage mother: “I chose you even when I wasn’t ready for you”

The idea of you terrified me. I wasn’t ready. I was only 18. The act in which you were conceived was not lovely. And there I sat knowing my life would forever be changed.

I pondered with thoughts that I knew were based on fear and selfishness. I didn’t want my life to change. This was not my plan. It wasn’t fair. I fell to my knees. It was there that God broke me of my selfishness. My fear. This was no longer about me. It was about you. I knew that I had to let go what of what I wanted so that I could give you a fighting chance.

Through my struggle of what to do, I knew deep down in the depths of my heart and soul that you were every much as alive as I was.

You were indeed a precious tiny child. A heart beat. A real live heart beat. You were a part of me. And I loved you. You deserved the very same chance at life that I had been given. You deserved to be loved.

Letting you go would in fact not make what happen to me any better. Or any less painful. No, I would have lived with that regret for the rest of life. Because no matter how you came to be, you were my child. A little tiny human that God gave life. And ending your life would not have fixed anything, it would not have erased what happened to me.

Several months later, I had a miscarriage. I lost you. And I broke. I had lost the very thing I did not think I wanted.

As I grieved the loss of your precious life, it hit me. I was so incredibly thankful that I did not make that choice myself. I chose to love you even though it was hard. God chose life and I chose to honor that until it was time for Him to take you home.

~~~~

Friends, life is God’s. It is not ours. No matter the circumstances. Many had said that due to the circumstances, I had the right…To choose. Plain and simple…That right is not mine.

My body, my choice, is NOT more important than that precious baby that I was blessed to carry for those few months prior to my miscarriage. It was not my choice if that little heart beat should get to continue to beat.

I look at the two precious children that the Lord has allowed us to raise and love. I would do anything. Absolutely anything to keep them safe. I would die for them. In a second. I would never do anything to harm them.

And all those years ago, I could not do anything to harm my very first child either.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published at My Life’s Journeys on November 4, 2014, and is reprinted here with permission. You can follow Kristen on Facebook here.