A New Legacy

What was your childhood like?

The first part of my childhood was not so great. My father was an alcoholic and traveled for work so he would be gone for stretches of a time and then home for stretches of a Time. When he was angry, he would throw things and was verbally abusive. I was always afraid to tell my parents if I did something wrong because I was afraid of how bad the punishment would be. I also experienced sexual abuse from a man from church so begin my distrust of men. I remember telling my mother, but she didn't know how to handle it because she too, had experienced years of abuse as a child. By the grace of God, my father came to know Jesus and stopped drinking and his destructive behavior and so began the new phase of my childhood! I was fortunate to come to know Jesus myself and thus begin my journey of healing from past wounds. 

When I married my husband, we wrote down a list of things we wanted different in our family then what we had experienced growing up. Our home is filled with love and peace! Well, as peaceful as it can get with three kids under five 🤪 are children are happy and socially active and we feel incredibly blessed! Although it was hard to go through what I did growing up, I'm so very thankful for it because I know what is healthy and what is not and the power of God's forgiveness and Grace!

My advice to couples just starting out would be to make devotions as a couple a priority as well as family devotions. If you give God the firstfruits of your day, you'll be surprised how well your day will go 🙂 Set healthy boundaries. Kids need to see Mom and Dad spending quality time with just the two of them. I told my kids, if Mama and Papa are happy, they will be happy too! Incorporate timeouts not only for the kids, but yourself the parent as well! Don't be afraid to ask forgiveness if you parent in anger

If there was anything I could tell my parents which by the way, they both are still alive and I see them quite often and we have a good relationship! I would tell them thank you for being transparent! Not shying away from the struggles of adulthood but including us kids in it so we could understand what was going on. I would thank them for disciplining us albeit, perhaps not perfectly. And lastly I would think them for a Godly heritage!