“Saddle up. We have a trail to blaze….”trail

The children’s voices rang loud and clear in the gymnasium that morning. It was Grandparents Day at the Christian school where I taught kindergarten. And as they continued singing I realized it could lend me hope for the new trail I was on.

For five months, our 16 year-old daughter had been gone from our home. One month after returning home, she realized she was pregnant. She broke the news to us the day before Grandparents Day.

Navigating life with our prodigal child was like blazing a trail in a foreign land. I was saddle weary, and now the Lord wanted me to blaze a new trail?

I was devastated. “ No Lord, not me. Choose someone else. This is too hard!”

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 came to my mind. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

“But I don’t want to be the mama to comfort other mamas!”

I continued to listen to the chorus with tears streaming down my face. “Follow God into the glorious unknown….”

As the song ended, it seemed my hopes and dreams for my daughter ended, too. Pregnancy would change everything.

I had more questions than answers. How would she finish high school? What about college? Would her boyfriend stick around? How could she support a child? What about adoption?

That year I learned to rely on God for each step in that “glorious unknown” and He was faithful. Our local pregnancy resource clinic, where ironically I was a counselor, became a haven for us.

If I could love, encourage, and pray for other women in unplanned pregnancies, surely God would give me strength to do the same for my own daughter.

God began to take my shattered dreams for my daughter and turned them into His dreams.

After much prayer and counsel, our school helped her graduate before the baby was born. Her boyfriend came to know the Lord and they were married.

Then God brought our story full circle this fall as I walked hand in hand with my grandson to visit his classroom on Grandparents Day.

Now I count it a privilege to ”comfort other mamas” when their children beckon them into the “glorious unknown.”

Cindy Richardson©2015 Cindy Richardson
For over 20 years, Cindy Richardson has been guiding little kindergarten hearts to love Jesus while mentoring and teaching women’s hearts through Bible study, retreats and speaking engagements. Her desire is to encourage, challenge and inspire women to trust the Father’s heart.

Image Attribution: Boris Kyurkchiev