No One Knows Your Future But God

Daily writing prompt

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

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I was asked on my first date at age 13 or 14, the junior prom. My mother bought me a new dress, and my aunt served as make-up artist. I waited until well after the prom had started, but the boy never came. As I took off the make-up, my aunt said something like, “It’s a good thing that you are smart because you are no Sleeping Beauty, and you will NEVER find a husband. You will have to take care of yourself!” At school, I was called “Little Monster,” so no boy would date me. I thought my aunt’s pronouncement was the truth, not considering that as another human being, she didn’t know what my future would look like. But those words haunted me for years, and I thought that I was the ugliest girl in the world.

I came to believe that any boy who said that he liked me was lying or wanted something from me. I couldn’t believe that anyone could think of me as worthy of their time. I have had more husbands than Van Camp’s got pork and beans! I am truly the woman at the well with five husbands. I have endured four divorces and immense heartbreak because I believed my aunt, someone who loved me but didn’t know the harm that one sentence could do to an impressionable young girl!

It took time, but I learned that no one knows your future but God. I kept marrying men I wanted to rescue in the false belief that they would love me because they needed this smart gal to provide the basics of shelter and food. But I wanted more.

When I told Douglas my marriage history, I thought that he wouldn’t want me because no man wants to be husband number five. But, how I hoped he could get past it, for I saw in his eyes that his sense of my value and worth mirrored my own hard-won belief that my aunt was wrong! Thankfully, he married me and he calls me his “pearl of great value” and beautiful. Praise be to God for the great things He has done in our lives!

Before she died, my aunt apologized for that remark. She wondered why I didn’t tell her when I was being battered. I told her about thinking I was ugly and not having heard even my parents or aunts tell me that I was loved, and he had said that he loved me after every beating! She said something like, “I’m sorry that I said that to you. But you made a liar out of me! You’ve had five husbands!” In reality, I have had only one!

Only God knows the plans He has for our lives to give us hope and a future! Don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t be or achieve! And please, please, please, don’t tell children that they have no value, they are not pretty, they will never amount to anything, or they will be like a parent who failed! You don’t have a right to play God in other people’s lives because as human beings, ten people can tell us we have value but, we believe the one who says we don’t have worth. It can be so destructive, and only the love of God can save us.