If you asked me when “God Grew Me Here” began, I’m not sure I could give you a date.

There wasn’t a business plan. There wasn’t a logo. There wasn’t even a name. There was just a woman in the middle of a life that looked very different than she once imagined it would.

A wife. A Mama. A Health Care Worker. Daycare Provider.

Someone who had spent years taking care of everyone around her—and somewhere along the way, had gotten a little lost herself.

I had dreams I walked away from. Seasons I didn’t understand.  Grief I never expected to carry. Mistakes I wished I could undo. A little too often parts of my story that, for a long time, I would have rather kept hidden.

But looking back now, I can see something I couldn’t see while I was living it. God never stopped working…Slowly, faithfully, and often in ways I didn’t understand…

And somewhere along the way, things began to change. Not all at once.

There wasn’t one big moment where suddenly everything made sense. I just started noticing God in places I hadn’t noticed Him before.

In ordinary mornings. In dirt under my fingernails and flowers I couldn’t stop bringing home. In creating things with my hands again. In conversations. In quiet prayers…And eventually, even in the parts of my story I once wished I could rewrite.

Little by little, I started becoming someone I hadn’t been in a very long time. Maybe even someone I’d never been before. Looking back now, I realize…God wasn’t just changing my circumstances. He was changing me. I didn’t know where the road was leading. I just knew God kept asking me to take the next step. Slowly but surely, He led me here.

God Grew Me Here isn’t just the name of a website. It’s a testimony. It’s a reminder that God meets us exactly where we are and faithfully grows us, one season at a time.

He’s not finished with me yet…but he’s carried me this far.

And I would be leaving out an important part of this story if I didn’t tell you about the ones who stayed.

First and always, God.

Through every version of me—the ones who were growing, struggling, wandering, beginning again—He never let go. Even when I couldn’t see what He was doing, He was still there. Still faithful. Still growing something I couldn’t see yet.

And beside me through so much of it has been my husband.

He has known me through more seasons than almost anyone. He has watched dreams change, plans fall apart, new ones begin, and probably wondered more than once what project I was dragging him into next. He has loved me through versions of myself that I was still learning how to love, and he has stayed beside me while God slowly, patiently grew me here.

This may be my testimony to tell, but I didn’t get here alone.

Thank you, God, for never giving up on me.
And thank you to the man who kept walking beside me while He grew me.