When I was five, my mother dropped me off at my aunt’s house and said, “I’m going to the beauty shop.”

Two hours passed. Four more. Hours turned into a lifetime. On that night, I returned to the basement where she and I lived in my grandparents’ home. Her empty closet created a hollow space in my heart. She left town that day and it was years before I saw her again.

Abandoned.

Again.

Because Daddy never showed.

“But you formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13 NKJV).

In His sovereignty, God inserted my aunt and uncle. They took me into their home and later adopted me. God was writing a story. But it’s hard to see it when you’re in it.

Abandoned hearts learn how to navigate life so they aren’t abandoned again. EVER! My abandoned heart grew into adulthood never learning to attach or make a relationship commitment. I broke off every dating relationship including two marriage proposals and one wedding. I didn’t know how to manage the pain of abandonment. The day I became pregnant out of wedlock, I was terrified the father would abandon me; I did the one thing my soul had waged war against my whole life. I abandoned my unborn child.

You were forming, oh God, the inward parts of this child, and prepared to cover him in my womb.

Abandoned hearts abandon others.

But grace means it’s never too late to change the ending to the story!

Soon after, I found myself depressed, craving something real. I got down on my knees and wept over the mess my life had become. I asked God to forgive me for trying to run my own life and offered my heart wholly to Him for the first time. It was there on my knees I felt His loving presence fill my abandoned heart.

The Lord eventually led my mother and me to a kind and respectful relationship. I had the privilege of telling her face to face of God’s forgiveness of me, and mine of her. She wept with relief. At her funeral last year, I told God’s redemptive story. I passed through my mother’s womb so I could be my parents’ daughter. Yes, God comprehended my path, hedged me in, and led me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139).