No one ever talks about how it feels to find out you’re pregnant and not be excited about it. Instead, everyone goes straight to the “children are a blessing” conversation.

But as I walked through the kitchen to my husband, positive pregnancy test in hand, I wasn’t feeling very blessed and excitement was nowhere near how I’d describe my emotions.

Shocked. Confused. Disappointed. Scared. Those were all more accurate. I’d just gotten married six months prior and in my mind, Geordan and I had at least three years of no obligations before we’d even visit the children conversation.

I had a plan. Get married. Travel. Make lots of love (Sorry mom and dad, just being honest since we waited for marriage to have sex) and simply enjoy being best friends. Then, only when we were ready, we’d move to Texas and have kids.

Well my friends, God axed all of that with two blue lines on a plastic stick and Geordan was left to pick up the pieces. I guess I should have seen it coming. God told me to get off birth control a couple months prior (I know what some of you are thinking “He hasn’t told me that yet!”) and that’s great, He probably hasn’t but James 4:17 says So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” and God had given me a very clear instruction so in my mind I had to do it.

Don’t be distracted by this part of the story. I don’t believe there’s a one size fits all equation for timing of children but I did know without a shadow of a doubt that for whatever reason God had decided that last October was mine and my husband’s moment to get pregnant and a pastor had just preached about how our level of success was determined by our level of obedience. So, in spite of my fear when God told me to stop taking birth control pills, I did.

However, there’s a huge difference between knowing something could happen and actually seeing it come to pass.

Expecting the Unexpected

When I didn’t get pregnant immediately after getting off the pill, I thought perhaps the ask was some kind of faith test I had passed. Enter the axe again. So how did I get from the dark place I was, to the light place I now live?

  1. Prayer (primarily for joy and peace)
  2. A whole lot of conversations with my parents and “G”
  3. and more Bible study then I’ve ever done in the history of my being.

I reminded myself that God works all things together for our good and His glory. (Romans 8:28). I reminded myself that though I passed through the rivers they would not overwhelm me (Isaiah 43:2), I reminded myself that those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:28-31) and I reminded myself that I was not to be anxious about anything but instead, I was to pray about everything (Philippians 6:4-7). And you know what? Slowly, over the course of several months, I began to believe what it was I was saying.

That’s when amazing started to happen. I heard God clearer than I ever had before. I met more friends who became like family and are also having babies! My marriage grew stronger. I got the opportunity to speak to churches, more of my books started selling and a door opened for me to make Black Girls with Purpose my full-time ministry.

I’d been delivered from thoughts of suicide as a teen but in this season God was giving me a new testimony. My life was no longer about being delivered from suicidal thoughts. Now God made it about doing bold and scary things – things like moving out of state, quitting my full-time job with benefits to pursue my calling, getting pregnant, having a baby and writing a book about all of this (which we’ll talk more about next week).

So what’s the purpose of me sharing this story? I have many:

  1. I’m big on transparency and I didn’t want you to be fooled by the cute baby pics you may see on my Instagram feed although Jaden brings so much joy to my life now, it took a moment to get to this. As my dad says “people see the glory but they don’t know your story.” which brings us to:
  2. I love storytelling! Seriously, it’s such a blessing to sit down and reflect on God’s goodness and see how He can take the people, places and things we never knew we wanted and turn them into our biggest blessings.
  3. I want you to be encouraged and empowered to do bold and scary things, even when you don’t know what the outcome may be. The awesome part about trusting God is that it leads to places you never imagined going because He’s a God who does “exceedingly and abundantly above all we could ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20)”

Want to develop the kind of faith that does bold and scary things? Pre-order my NEW book Walking on Water – A 21-Day Devotional on Faith set to release 2018! You can pre-order it on my Kickstarter campaign now through September 16