Finding My Way Back to Me

Finding My Way Back to Me

This morning, I got lost in memories.

Not the kind you choose to revisit, but the type that shows up uninvited—carrying the weight of decades.

I saw myself as a mischievous, silly child… yet crushed in spirit by voices that called me “stupid.”

A teenage jerk (because let’s be honest—weren’t we all a little?)

A young adult searching for footing, finding God to steady me.

A wife determined to love and support my husband, yet afraid of losing myself.

A young mom trying to figure out how to raise three wonderful but very different kids.

Isn’t that how life goes?

Shaped by circumstances we never saw coming. Influenced by places we’ve lived and people we’ve known, sometimes pulled off course by pain, distraction, or simply survival.

And I wondered:

How much of who I was meant to be got buried under who I felt I had to become?

What parts of my true self remain?

Did I leave some stranded years ago on the side of the road?

Did I miss the markers—the signs meant to guide me home?

Am I living the life I chose… or the life I thought I should lead?

As these questions swirled, I found myself whispering aloud with a sigh of relief:

“You loved me back then, didn’t You?”

And immediately, I smiled.

Because I knew the answer.

Yes!

God loved me then.

He loves me now.

Not just the cleaned-up, polished version,

Not just the “Christian mom” I attempted to emulate.

But the messy, creative, failing, insecure, mistake-making, rebellious wild-hearted girl I used to be—and in many ways, still am.

He loved her.

He still does.

And He loves the woman I’ve become.

He wasn’t disappointed.

He wasn’t nervously wondering, like my parents, if I would “amount to much.”

He wasn’t judgy or waiting for me to straighten up.

He was watching me with delight!

He loves me with a love I can’t grasp or explain—deeper than memory, louder than shame, stronger than time.

And when I pause long enough to take in even a glimpse of how wide and long and high and deep His love really is, something shifts.

I can begin to love myself—not just the polished version, but the messy, insecure, still-growing me.

And from that place of being rooted in love, I find I can love others better too—because He loves them just as fiercely.

So maybe that’s the invitation for all of us: to remember, and to rest in the truth that His love has never wavered. It covers our past, carries us into our future, and steadies us in this very moment. This is the love that welcomes us home—to ourselves, and to Him.

“I pray that out of His glorious riches

He may strengthen you with  power

through His Spirit in your inner being,

so that Christ may

dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted

and established in love, may have

power, together with all the Lord’s

holy people, to grasp how wide and

long and high and deep is the love

of Christ, and to know this love that

surpasses knowledge—that you may

be filled to the measure of all the

fullness of God.”

—Ephesians 3:16–19