16 Things I Know For Sure

Sixteen years ago I was told my pregnancy probably wouldn't make it to viability. I delivered at 31 weeks anyway.

I'm not the same woman who I was 16 years ago and for a long time I used to beat myself up about it. Recently someone told me that I needed to forgive myself for taking so long to learn the lessons that only time could team.

So here are sixteen things I know now that I didn't know then — one for every year she's been here.

On grace and what I can't control

1. But for the grace of God, go I. From “she may not make it to viability” to a delivery at 31 weeks, I never once doubted His mercy. It was as it was intended to be. I didn't earn the outcome. I was carried to it.

2. Your parenting can only take them so far. You read the books. You build the tools. You put in the work. And then one day you meet the limit of all of it: they have free will, and you are not in control. That's not your failure. That's the design.

3. Parenting is the ultimate group project. You can only control what you can control — which, it turns out, is roughly 1/3 of the assignment. The rest belongs to them, to God, to the people who shape them when you're not in the room.

On seeing them — and myself — clearly

4. Each child is their own tree. The Bible says you can judge a tree by the fruit it bears. For years I read my kids' mistakes as a report card on me. It wasn't until I saw each of them as a separate tree — their own roots, their own fruit — that I could watch them stumble without taking it as a verdict on my parenting. My children are my seeds, but they bear their own fruit.

5. I was parenting her neurodivergence while ignoring my own. I spent years learning how to help my daughter navigate her neurodivergence. Nothing I did for her helped as much as the day I finally went and got help for myself. You cannot want better for them, without wanting better for yourself.

6. Childhood deserves more grace than we were given. We were robbed of the room to simply develop. Honesty was essential to our safety and there is a generational fear that made a child's lie a prophecy: lie and you'll steal, steal and you'll kill. The punishment was severe because our parents were afraid. When you can name the fear that shaped how you were raised, you get to choose something gentler for your children.

On how I show up for them

7. My oldest got the harshest version of me. She deserved the softest. She got the unrefined and unedited version — the me who was still figuring it out. I can't give those years back. But I can show her the humanity in my mistakes, because that's what will let her hold her own one day without shame.

8. I want her to win. Every time. Be smarter. Heal faster. Go further. Arrive easier. There is no part of me that competes with my daughter — and if there were, I'd want her to win. So I hand her the cheat codes whenever I can. I tell her the truth about every relationship, every situation, every person. Including myself.

9. I've watched this one hold up across all sixteen years, and I've yet to find the exception:

10. I am one of her "little friends" — and I hold the honor of her first example of friendship. We were told authority and friendship couldn't share a house. That a parent who was also a friend had given something up. There is a hierarchy in my home, and there is also real respect and friendship in it. She's learning what one looks like by living inside it.

On what sixteen years actually taught me

11. Peer validation matters as much as representation. Can a child grow up confident and successful without it? Yes. But it's a harder road. When you put a child somewhere they're seen and valued by their peers — naturally, appropriately, without having to beg for it — you spare them years of looking for it in the wrong rooms.

12. Grow at your own pace, even if your partner doesn't match it. You may be the one reading the books, sitting in therapy, doing the changing — and you may be doing it ahead, or alone. Do it anyway. In any partnership you only control yourself, so run your own plays with honesty. One day she'll recognize what healthy looks like, because you were open about the truth by the way you lived.

13. You can have insecurities without being an insecure person. Insecurity is part of being human. Having a few doesn't make you weak, and it doesn't get to define you. It just makes you a person — which is exactly what your kids need to see.

14. Feelings are temporary. Even the big ones. The hard feelings pass. But so do the good ones — even the very best don't keep. Knowing that has made me hold the sweet moments closer and the hard ones looser. It's also given me the opportunity to talk openly about mental health.

15. Overlooked is not the same as unseen. So much of this work happens where no one is watching. It doesn't feel good to go unnoticed. But what is invisible to the people around you is fully seen by God. Your unseen work is part of your ministry.

16. Favor isn't fair. Any favor I've been given, I didn't earn. Any despair I've walked through, I didn't deserve. Sixteen years taught me to stop keeping that ledger. Grace was never about the math.

Sixteen years ago I didn't know if I'd get to learn any of this. I did. I'm still learning it.

If you want to keep these closer — the reflections, the real conversation, the things I'm still figuring out in real time — there's a weekly note for that. It's called Truly Yours. It's free for now. And it's, well, truly yours.