Divorced

My toys, my clothes, and everything I owned was packed and loaded into the back of my families little red car. That one April day, changed my whole world forever.

I was 6 years old and much too young to fully understand what was going on. There were two things I knew for sure: The first, I was leaving the small town I had always known as home. And the second, my partner in crime, my best friend, my father, was not coming with us.

From a very early age I began to take are of myself. Growing up I saw my father a maximum of 7 times a month. My mom shortly remarried after the divorce and her priorities became her new husband and his kids. I felt myself slipping through the cracks, and I had no where to go. It was rather obvious that I didn’t fit in with my family, so at a very early age I learned that I could trust no one, but myself.

For most of my life I built up these walls preventing people from truly getting to know who I really was. I didn’t want them to see the real me but more importantly I didn’t want them to know that I was hurting inside. My home life was less than ideal and I felt like I had no one to turn to. My mom was hardly around, and when she was, someone was always fighting. I found that my safe place, my hiding spot, was my bedroom.

I reached a point in my life where I was completely broken and had no where to turn. I was longing for love and comfort but I was looking in all the wrong places. It wasn’t until I turned to Him, broken and beautiful, that I found all that I was looking for. For all my life I looked in all the wrong places to fulfill this gap I had felt. Looking to people in this world to be the father I didn’t really have. When in reality the only Father I really needed was the One who created me, the One who knows how many hairs are on my head, the One, who will never leave me.

These last few years have been a huge struggle at home. I have found that as things at home became more of a struggle my walk with Christ became even stronger. For most of my life I relied on myself, thinking that the only person I could trust was myself, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I learned that I could trust Christ and only Him. People of this world will always let me down but He never will.

He is my comfort, my shelter, and my light at the end of the tunnel. Weather you grew up with one parent or four, like I did, the only One that really matters is the One that created you and loves you and will never walk away.

I have come to find that my family struggles can have a positive impact on my life, and the life of others. I hope that through all of my pain I can encourage others and let them know that things will get better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

** Written by Nicole H.