The Renewal

Hello Mom Dreams, I first want to say thank you and that you are in great hands. I pray that you will receive everything from this platform and that you will embrace yourself so that your life can be transformed. Breanna, I want to thank you for the opportunity to share my transformation journey with these beautiful women and for your years of friendship. You and your family came into our lives at a most pivotal point in our journey and you have been a supporter of this Renewal process every sense.

I titled this read The Renewal because I was on a path to find something different in my life. I felt like I was just going through the motions, people pleasing, and feeling unfulfilled. One day I sat on the edge of my bed in a quiet house and told God that I was ready for what he has for me and that I was done wasting time. In this moment I decided to renew my vows to God, myself, my husband and to my children. I realized I had not given my family the best version of myself. The picture you see is me and my husband renewing our vows in year nine of our marriage, in 2021. We needed a redo chileeeee lol.

This journey for me started in 2019 after my family and I had just found out that our dad had been diagnosed with cancer. They only gave him nine months to live, but God allowed him one year and a few months. Not only did grief settle in, so did pain. The pain I never addressed with my father being absent and present at the same time and not knowing all these years how to communicate what I needed from him. But was this the time to lay this burden on him or do I make the choice to forgive fully of what he did not know? I knew that total forgiveness was the only way.

While sitting on my restroom floor with tears in my eyes I took back my power that pain tried to own in my story. At some point in our adult life, we will have to forgive our parents for what they did not know. That renewal was so transformative that before my dad transitioned, God allowed me to have a beautiful conversation with him by myself. In this moment he told me how proud I made him, what difference I made in his life as a man and father, and how much he loved me. God assured me that even when our earthly parents pass on that I will always have a father in him. In that moment I took God as a father who knew everything about me and loved me anyway.

What I did not share earlier is that one of the purposes of the Renewal was to have the memory of my father giving me away. Although I did not get that moment, my baby brother walked me, nothing was more important than having peace while I grieved.

I do not know what has tried to own your story, but I dare you to lay down your pain in exchange for God's love. Whether you are married or not, a Renewal can happen at any moment, time, day, or week. My vow renewal to God, myself, husband, and children was the jump start to my healing process. I had the opportunity to recommit, restore the pieces of my life, and really begin to live a blessed life. There is still more to be written and renewing my vows will be continuous. I want to give you permission too!