Flashing back to my first year of college and the opportunity it held. I was blind to this opportunity. I was just going through the motions. I thought this was what you were supposed to do and so I thoughtlessly moved forward.  Hey, you get good grades and you go off to college.  Right? You go off with the hope of landing a career that will make lot’s of money. I thought I would be a pediatric dentist. Surely at this point, my attention span would miraculously be on point and the weaknesses I had always had struggled with in math and science would all just melt away and my “dream” would come true (it really wasn’t my dream at all. it was a made up dream at best it seemed like a good idea). I was not too in touch with reality and my choices were not working out for me. I could care less about chemistry and calculus and I changed my major. I was now en route to the five year undergraduate plan. The outcome: A degree in Liberal Arts with a major in music and absolutely no hope of a job any day soon. But that is a whole other story for another time.

I only applied to two schools. One I really wanted to go to and one as a last resort. I got into both. I could have gone off to a prestigious university and pursued a career in music, but I was afraid. I didn’t want to go away because I was scared and I didn’t want to leave my boyfriend.  I didn’t really plan or have direction, other than the questionnaire I took in high school leading me to a career as a truck driver. That wasn’t very helpful. The truth is, I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. My plans were haphazard. My attitude was one of just doing enough to get by. The bare minimum. Squeaking on by was enough for me. I mean, I seemed to be doing better than anyone else in my family and to me, that was good enough. I thought of myself far more highly than I should have and at the same time, didn’t really think too much of myself at all. Crazy, right?

Dating my boyfriend gave me status. At least, it seemed that way to me. He was handsome and popular. I so enjoyed being with him, when we weren’t fighting. And the fighting was familiar, so it was fine.

All this time, my boyfriend and I were intimate with each other. Dating a few months before entering into a sexual relationship seemed to be the right thing to do. A girl wouldn’t want her guy to think she was easy or something. So, we waited….and then we didn’t. And we dated for three years. And all that time we had sex everywhere, all the time, and we were successful at not getting “caught”.  We knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, but we didn’t care. And we mostly didn’t use protection, not that it would have excused our behavior in some way.

So I am in my first year of college and I become pregnant. This was THE WORST, most horrible discovery of my life.  And my first thought, “Everyone is going to know we are having sex and I am going to be in BIG TROUBLE. They will think I am bad. They must never know. What am I going to do? My life will be ruined. I cannot bring a child into this awful world so it can be as miserable as I am and everyone else around me.”

Having this child never even entered my mind as an option. It was a definite time of distress for me. And not only was I scared, I was sick. My body was experiencing morning sickness and I could not function normally. I managed to hide it well and hiding was a must. No one knew except a few close friends and my boyfriend. His reaction was less than supportive at the time. At one point, he even questioned if the child was his, as if I was the one who had been unfaithful in the relationship. With the VICTIM sign dangling heavily around my neck, and my “good girl” image in jeopardy, AND my own disregard for all life except my own, I made my mind up. My very “life” depended on it. I never understood there was One that had already died to save me.

 “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 

1 John 4:9-10