As I mentioned earlier this week, I have two free downloads for you! They are each included at the end of this post but I hope you take the time to READ the post. It explains why I have something to share with you!
My oldest daughter turned 22 years old last Friday.
That means that it was 22 years ago that I had my first child.
She was beautiful.
She was tiny.
She was mine.
And I was young – 19 to be exact.
Years ago, I was a teenage mom, not married, and in the fall of my sophomore year in college. The year of my daughter’s birth was one of the most difficult years of my life. In fact, that is probably an understatement. That year was hard – very hard.
While I’m sure you can imagine why, I’d like to share one of the reasons that year was difficult for me.
A positive pregnancy test set off a string of new realities in my life, one of which was a strong feeling of my own lack of worth. I had messed up. I had disappointed people I loved. I was on my way to being mom at a season of my life that I was planning on finishing out my time being a kid.
I was no longer the “good girl”.
I wondered, sometimes out loud, if God still loved me.
Pain mixed with a little shock, a ton of remorse, and lots of uncertainty left me feeling unlovable, unredeemable, and out of God’s good graces. And I questioned God’s love for me.
I knew He loved me but I didn’t feel it.
It was like I had traveled to the ends of the earth and was out there alone, in the dark, and in the cold.
Apparently during one of those lonely, dark, cold moments, I reached for my Bible and searched for reassurance of God’s love for me. All of my life I had been taught to believe and did believe that God loved me no matter what. I just needed proof. I needed a reminder that I could rest in and rehearse so that I wouldn’t forget or doubt the reality of His love in my life.
I wrote one verse down on a sheet of notebook paper. That one verse became two, then five, then over time became two pages of scriptures that reminded me that God loved me.
I kept those pieces of notebook paper with me at all times – folded up in my pocket or in my purse or in my backpack as I went to class.
Recently, in a radio interview discussing Kingdom Woman, I was asked about how I got through that season of my life. I shared about those pieces of paper that were my lifeline to God’s love. That led to me digging them out of a file box and finding them still intact even though they had yellowed with time.
I have had so many people ask me for them, I decided to share.
I’m sharing these “Reminders of God’s Love” – the verses that encouraged me during that time in your life. I’m also sharing the study guide for the Kingdom Woman book that I wrote with my dad and released earlier this year. It was during the process of writing Kingdom Woman that I was reminded again of my value to God, what He thinks of me, and how He wants me to live my life as a result of the knowledge of how He has made me beautiful, strong, and powerful in Him.
I pray that the free downloadables included at the bottom of this post will bless you and that you will be encouraged in knowing that God loves you.
Feel free to use the first download, “Reminders of God’s Love”, however you can best be reminded of how God feels about you. Print them out, laminate them, or tape them to your bathroom mirror! There are 12 verses that I’ve done so far and I’m sharing the first six of those with you this month.
I hope that you use the second download, the Kingdom Woman study guide, to go through the book by yourself or with a group of friends to dig deep in searching out how God made you and what He wants you to do with purpose, power, and possibilities he had in mind when He made you.
More than anything I pray these resources will help you know and feel this truth and reality…
No matter where you are, what you’ve done, or what you are facing, God is on your side. He is always standing, ready and willing to rescue you and reassure you of His unending love. He is head over heels in love with you and wants you to know how much He is for you.
I pray that these resources bless you as much as they’ve blessed me.
(Click on the links below to receive the downloads!)
I LOVE these verses. I’m so touched by your testimony. God’s love covers all! Hallelujah! Thank you Chrystal!
Thank you. At this moment and time, I needed the very words you shared to help me through my current moment of pain, confussion and disappointments in my life. Healing hurts so bad.
The pain won’t last forever 🙂 Be encouraged.
Thank you for sharing!
I was at church the Sunday you gave your testimony. I was touched and was scrambling to write the verses as you read them. I really think you should write a book or journal for teen girls based on your “reminders.” There are so many issues they are facing and this would be a little sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day.
The power of redemption is healing and inspiring!
Wow, just look at your baby girl now.
So so true! It never fails, a reminder of His unconditional love for us puts everything into perspective! And you look exactly the same today as you did in that picture! 🙂
Love your willingness to be transparent for His Kingdom. Many will be blessed by your testimony. Blessings!
This was an awesome post and I wish I could just get all of the young single mothers in my church together to sit at your feet.
I find your courage to share this story to be most inspiring and a testament to your victory.
[…] Think about what He did for YOU… […]
Thank you for sharing! I have almost the same story and felt the same way – sometimes I sit here wondering why does HE love me so much and pursues me when I jump into the pit of despair….my son will be 23 this month and I turned 19 two weeks after he was born…I have been married to his father for 23 1/2 years and the doctors told us to abort him for 6 months…told us horrible things…I have been against abortion ever since I can remember and my husband always wanted to work with Down syndrome children….my dad kept telling me God wouldn’t give us anything we couldn’t handle…32 hours and emergency C section we had a PERFECT healthy son with no problems!!! My son is against abortion- knows his story- and shares it often with girls who are for abortion… Doctors are not God… Test can be wrong….just thought I needed to share… Sorry for babbling ; ) thank you again
KEEPING THE FAITH
SARAH
Free Study guide link is not working. I was wanting to receive the free study guide for Kingdom Women
Send an email to info@chrystalevanshurst.com
I cannot download Reminders of Gods Love.Is it still available?
Thanks for letting me know that the links aren’t working. I will work to fix ASAP 🙂
[…] I look back over the last 20″ish” years I’ve been parenting, I don’t just see the growth and development of my children. I see the growth and development […]
[…] I look back over the last 20″ish” years I’ve been parenting, I don’t just see the growth and development of my children. I see the growth and […]
Like her mother, she is absolutely gorgeous! I admire you so much for all you do for Jesus – you and your a,axing family are beautiful ambassadors for Jesus Christ and you mean so much to so many of us. I want to commend and offer all the respect in the world to the 19 year old child you were who BRAVELY chose to have her baby rather than take the easy way out. If your daughter doesn’t fully realize the amazing self-sacrificing gift you gave her, she certainly will one day. I have so much respect for you for choosing the difficult but right way rather than the easy but wrong way. That’s difficult enough for adults to do…. but a 19 year old college student?! Remarkable! Thank you for all you do to touch others – and may God continue to bless you and your precious family.
I was 14 years old when I became pregnant as a result of an illicit relationship, 15 when I gave birth to my son. While other 15-year-olds were worrying about silly teenage stuff, I was in the hospital signing adoption papers. I signed those papers and almost 21 years later I’ve never seen my son again. For years I pushed the shame, guilt, and embarrassment down. Eventually, it seeped out of my life through anger, isolation, and really low self-esteem and so much self-rejection. I mean how could God love me after what I had done? Fast forward, I’m 35 years old now and it took a while for me to get to this place of accepting and receiving His love for me, but I’m here. Each day I’m becoming more and more aware of just how much He loves me. I’m still challenged in the area of self-esteem, but by His grace, I’m growing stronger and stronger in coming into the knowledge of who I am as God’s daughter: precious, beloved, beautiful, wise, and graced.
Thank you for sharing your story. I’m glad you found your way here.
Are these verses still available? I am being redirected back to the initial blog page or getting an error message when I click one or both of the links provided.
Hi there! So sorry about that. Verses are available here: https://chrystalevanshurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SST_RemindersOfGodsLove.pdf
I would like to get the scriptures that you mentioned in your testimony.
Hi there! So sorry about that. Verses are available here: https://chrystalevanshurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SST_RemindersOfGodsLove.pdf
I know it’s been a while since this article was written but I just found you. How can I get these scriptures? I click on the link but it just opens the article again. It is not downloading.
Thanks!
Hi there! So sorry about that. Verses are available here: https://chrystalevanshurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SST_RemindersOfGodsLove.pdf