Hindsight In Life Is Powerful

This memoir has never really been about abuse, poverty, homelessness, ministry, or even healing as separate parts of my life. Beneath every chapter runs a quieter story. My story was never simply about loss. It was always about contrast.

Every season held two worlds side by side: chaos and peace, neglect and consistency, despair and hope. There was my mother's house, where I learned to survive, and Nana's home, where I learned what love looked like. There were people who gave up and people who quietly endured.

For years, I thought the defining feature of my childhood was everything I lacked. Only now can I see that something just as important was happening at the same time. I was quietly collecting examples of what peace looked like.

Children adapt to almost anything. I adapted to instability. I learned how to make dinner for myself, how to stay quiet, and how not to expect adults to keep their promises. I learned that homes disappear, relationships change, and security can vanish overnight.

But every visit to Nana's reminded me that another way of living was possible. While one part of my childhood taught me what was broken, another was quietly showing me what could be made whole.

I was also learning something entirely different every time I walked through Nana's front door. I was learning what consistency looked like. What kindness looked like. What faithfulness looked like. What sacrifice looked like. What ordinary, everyday love looked like. Those lessons became just as much a part of me as the painful ones.

As I look back now, I notice something else. I tell many of these stories almost matter-of-factly. Perhaps that's because neglect was so normal to me that I didn't recognize how unusual it really was. Children don't have another childhood to compare their own against. They simply assume life works the way they've experienced it.

It wasn't until adulthood that I began to understand how much I had actually survived. The little girl who learned to live with uncertainty had no idea she was being prepared for an adulthood that would require that same quiet endurance and steadfast faith.

I've come to learn that children don't naturally see themselves through their own eyes. They learn to see themselves through the eyes of the people raising them. For years, one voice shaped the way I saw myself.

"You're selfish."

“You’re ugly.”

"You're no good."

"You'll never amount to anything."

But there was another voice. Nana quietly reminded me that I was capable. She believed I could learn difficult things. She trusted me with responsibility. She loved me without making me earn it.

Then my teachers added their voices. They saw creativity where I saw awkwardness. They recognized potential when I only saw insecurity. They believed in me long before I learned to believe in myself.

Years later, I discovered the voice that had been speaking over me all along.

God's.

I am his child.

John 1:12 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”

Romans 8:15-17 “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

I am wonderfully made.

Psalm 139:14 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

I am a new creation.

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

I am made righteous through Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

I am chosen and redeemed.

Ephesians 1:4-7 “He chose us to be with him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

At some point, every child becomes an adult who must then decide which voices will have the final word. That decision changes everything.

My mother saw my wounds. My nana saw my potential. My teachers saw my gifts. God saw my identity. I was his.  

For much of my adult life, I didn't realize how deeply my childhood was still shaping me. It explained why earning a 4.0 in school mattered so much. Why I overprepared for every lesson I taught. Why criticism could devastate me. Why I tried so hard to do everything perfectly in ministry. Why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I still struggled to believe I was enough.

It also explained why I rarely let people get too close. Somewhere along the way, I had quietly accepted the belief that people either die, move away, or leave. That every relationship eventually ends. If I never became too attached, maybe it wouldn't hurt quite as much when it did.

Healing isn't linear, and those instincts don't disappear overnight. Even now, they occasionally resurface. But healing has taught me to recognize those reactions for what they are—not truth, but echoes of old wounds. Instead of letting them control me, I've learned to pause, examine them, and choose a different response.

Something else became clear as I raised my own children.

The life I built wasn't accidental.

Staying married through the hardest seasons of our lives was first a commitment to honor God and the covenant we had made before Him. But it was also a decision to preserve a family for our children; a home where they could grow up knowing that love stays.

Taking a family vacation or two every year wasn't simply about making memories. I wanted to give my children some deep-rooted memories of joy they could cling to when life inevitably became hard.

Reading together.

Eating dinner around the table.

Celebrating birthdays.

Keeping our promises.

Returning to church every Sunday.

These weren't just family traditions.

They were quiet reminders that our home was a place my children could count on. Only after traveling much farther down the road could I understand that those weren't ordinary parenting choices. They were my answer to the little girl who had learned to expect beautiful things to disappear. Without even realizing it, I spent years building the childhood I had always wished someone could have built for me.

People notice the stability and steadiness of our home. They mention that we don't yell at our children. That they're allowed to ask questions, make mistakes, and learn without fear. That respect is expected, but grace is always available. They see a family that genuinely enjoys being together. What they don't see is where every piece came from. I didn't invent the life I built. I gathered it, one piece at a time, from the people who loved me well.

From Scripture. From Papa's quiet work ethic. From Nana's steadfast consistency. From faithful teachers. From pastors who invested in us. From friends who modeled healthy families. Each one showed me another piece of the life I wanted to build.

Over time, those pieces became a foundation. They shaped the home we created, the marriage we fought for, and the childhood our own children would inherit.

Children don't just inherit family histories. They inherit examples. They watch how love is expressed, how conflict is handled, how forgiveness is offered, how faith is lived out, and how commitment endures. Then, one day, they decide which patterns they will carry forward and which ones will end with them.

I understand now why becoming a teacher felt less like choosing a career and more like answering a calling. I know what it feels like when one teacher notices the child everyone else overlooks. I know the power of a single encouraging sentence. I know what it's like to carry those words home and treasure them because they were the kindest thing anyone had said all week.

That's why I try to notice every child who walks into my classroom. I praise effort instead of perfection. I write thoughtful report card comments because I know parents save them, and children remember them. I mentor struggling students because someone once mentored me. I create a classroom where routines are predictable, mistakes are part of learning, and every child knows they are seen. In many ways, I'm simply giving away what was first given to me.

Reflecting on my favorite person; Nana never considered herself extraordinary. She wasn't wealthy. She wasn't famous. She wasn't glamorous. She simply showed up for the people she loved. Again. And again. And again.

She believed that ordinary faithfulness, practiced over a lifetime, mattered. That simple acts of kindness could quietly change a person's life. She lived with open hands. She gave her time. She gave her wisdom. She gave her patience. When she was able, she gave freely of her finances. Most of all, she gave children the unmistakable feeling that they mattered.

That became part of the legacy she left me. I pray that same legacy lives on through my own children and through the thousands of students who have walked, and will one day walk, through my classroom doors.

In retrospect, I don't believe the defining question of my life was ever, Why did this happen? After all, who am I to question or argue with God’s provincial plans? The better question became, What will I build with what happened?

I could not choose the family I was born into. I could not rewrite my childhood. I could not rescue every person I loved. But I could choose what my children would remember. I could choose what kind of wife I would strive to become. What kind of mother. What kind of teacher. What kind of follower of Christ. In the end, our greatest legacy isn't the life we were handed. It's the life we choose to build with it. 

That choice became my inheritance and my gift to my children. Not because pain disappeared. But because grace proved stronger than it. The broken road brought me home. Not to a place. To a Person. And because of Him, what began with chaos did not have to end there. The story of my family would no longer be defined by what was broken, but by what God, in His faithfulness, patiently rebuilt.

Nana, if love could be measured by words, this book still wouldn't be enough. Thank you for showing a little girl what faithfulness looked like. Thank you for giving me a picture of home long before I knew how to build one myself. 

Rest in peace, Nana.

I love you dearly.

Until we meet again.