I watched as the white flower was passed around from person to person. Our teacher encouraged us to feel the texture of the flower, smell it, and simply observe it.

After it was passed around by twenty or so people, the flower was no longer what it used to be. It had been touched and torn. Petals were coming off of it and the pristine white color it once was, was more like a dungy, wrinkled yellow.

This was the illustration she used to demonstrate sexual relations outside the confines of marriage and how it affects your life.

The image of that flower kept flashing over and over again in my mind.

“Was I that flower now, used and unwanted?”

I had become so caught up in so many things that I swore I would never do. So many things I told others I would never do. SO many things I promised God I would never do. Now here I was pregnant and rather than feeling overwhelmed with joy (as you should when you become pregnant) I felt nothing but guilt. I felt this heaviness on me that was indescribable. Something I always wanted, felt like a burden and not a blessing.

“How could God bless me with a beautiful, healthy baby?”

I felt guilty for having a baby when so many struggle to get pregnant. I had a close family friend, who when I told her, I started crying because they were struggling for years to conceive and I got pregnant in the course of two weeks.

I felt guilty for speaking with young girls about abstinence, when here I am pregnant and now I just looked like a hypocrite.

I felt guilty for putting my parents in a situation where they were now financially responsible for me and a baby (and babies aren’t cheap).

I felt guilty for wanting Dawson’s biological father to be in the picture when I knew he wasn’t the kind of man I wanted leading my son. I wanted him so badly to acknowledge the fact he had a son and that he needed to be a part of his life.

I felt guilty for professing to be a Christian and seeking after God’s heart, but I wasn’t. I was so selfish and so prideful and ignorant to what I was doing. I never thought about the consequences of my actions because I never thought there would ever be any.

BUT GOD.

What my teacher failed to emphasize is that we are ALL that broken, dungy, flower regardless of the choices we make in our lives.

 My choices could never outweigh the grace of God.

I will always be wanted and loved by Him regardless, because that is what true, unconditional love is. He knew the good, the bad and the ugly before he even put breath into my lungs and He died on a cross for me in spite of it all.

Life is not always easy, it can be hard and there are still consequences I am facing now (and will face in the future) as a result of the choices I made. But I get the joy of being able to look into little blue eyes and big brown eyes every single day and see the grace and mercy of God.

Whatever you are holding onto, whatever is heavy on your heart today, know that God’s grace is greater. We are all broken in our own way, but you have a creator who formed every part of you and knows how to put all those broken pieces back together. Trust in Him.

 I had guilt, but God had grace.