Look What God Did
I didn’t plan for this.
No one really does, I guess — not the part where you’re carrying a child and the person who’s supposed to love you most decides not to stay.
When I found out I was pregnant, I imagined the milestones the way little girls imagine wedding dresses — with soft edges, glowing moments, someone by my side who would see it all with me.
Instead, I found myself at a doctor’s appointment alone, staring at the flicker of a heartbeat on the screen, trying not to cry so the nurse wouldn’t ask if I was okay.
People love to tell single moms that we’re “so strong.” I think what they don’t realize is, sometimes we don’t feel strong at all. Sometimes, you just… keep going because there’s no other choice. You buy the crib. You figure out how to assemble it with instructions that make no sense. You wake up sick and still drag yourself to work. You answer well-meaning but exhausting questions from people who don’t understand. And at night, you lie in bed with your hand resting on your stomach, wondering if your baby will feel the absence you’re already grieving.
The day he was born, everything got both harder and better all at once.
Harder, because I suddenly knew I would do anything for him — and “anything” is a heavy promise when you’re the only one holding it.
Better, because from the moment I held him, I realized I wasn’t actually alone. Not really.
He’s two now. He has this way of tilting his head when he’s curious, and it’s the exact same look I make when I’m trying to figure something out. He tells me knock-knock jokes with no punchline and laughs at himself like he’s the funniest person alive. He insists on “helping” me cook, which usually means stirring something until it spills.
And somewhere in between his belly laughs and his sticky peanut-butter kisses, I realized something I wish I could go back and tell that version of me two years ago:
We’re going to be okay.
I thought being left meant I was starting from nothing. But here we are — building a life together, one bedtime story, one morning snuggle, one whispered prayer at a time. The love I thought I lost didn’t disappear. It multiplied. It deepened. It became something better than I could have planned.
I used to think the absence in our life was the loudest part of our story.
Now I see it was just the space God left open to fill with something better.
And here’s the thing — God knows what it is to protect a mother and her child. He’s not just the Father of fathers. He’s also a girl dad. He entrusted His only Son to a young, unwed woman named Mary, and then He wrapped His protection around her like armor. He made sure Joseph stayed, that they were guided, that they were kept safe from harm.
When I doubt if I’m really going to be able to protect my child in this big, broken world, I remember: the same God who protected Mary is protecting me. He’s the God who guards single mothers, who keeps watch when we’re too tired to. He’s the Father who bends down to our level and says, “I’ve got you. I’ve got him.”
And Mary — she gets it. She knows what it is to raise a child with both joy and a quiet ache. She knows what it’s like to hold a sleeping baby and wonder about the life ahead. When I feel like no one understands, I remember she does. I imagine her praying with me, reminding me that motherhood is holy work, even when it feels exhausting and unseen.
When I tuck my son into bed at night, I think of Psalm 68:5:
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”
I whisper it over him like a promise. Because God isn’t just somewhere far away — He’s here, in our living room, in our bedtime prayers, in the way the morning light falls across my son’s face.
We’re not waiting to be okay anymore.
We already are.
