A Plan Beyond Measures

When I was asked to share my testimony I wanted to say, “NOOO.” I was so nervous and so uncomfortable. I started to question myself. Why is it so easy for us to say no rather than to say yes when it comes to God’s will? It amazes me how we can find every excuse on why not to do it, but can’t find one reason on why we should do it. Talk about having the spirit of fear huh? I started to rebuke the spirit of fear, for it is not given to us by our Father.

I come from a broken home. I was full of so much anxiety and I was finding comfort in all the wrong places. I was in unhealthy relationships which would drain me emotionally. Being a witness to my parents' separation was very heartbreaking for me. Due to the trauma of my parents' separation, I dealt with mental and emotional abuse for a very long time. I would tell myself “I can fix this," or better yet, “this is normal."

As time went by and life continued, I graduated High School and went to Rutgers University to major in Psychology. I had everything planned out for my future, so I thought, but... so did God. In the midst of my studies and wanting to build a great future for myself, I met a young man, now my fiancé, who turned my world around. This young man was hilarious and always put a smile on my face. He was very unique and always checking in on me. He would help me when help was needed. Him and I started to get a bit more serious and he would make me fall in love with him every single day. He would bring me "just because" flowers and would randomly text me. I started to say “this is too good to be true." I hoped for the best but always prepared myself for the worst, since the worst was the new "normal" in my life.

As my plans started to go out the window and God’s plan started to take its course. I was chosen to perform a task that changed my life. On January 22, 2018 I was surprised by a positive pregnancy test. The only thing that kept running through my mind was “what am I going to do?!" I started to seek God more and more since He had chosen me to start a family. Months passed and I was blessed to give birth to a baby girl. She was brought into this world on September 13th at 3:48 pm, she weight 6 lbs and 6 oz. We named her Jelayna Adalise Rodriguez.

“We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps” (Proverbs 16:9 NLT)