Lost and Found: Finding Hope in the Detours of Life (5 page)

Each of us paired up with a childhood love—the one we hoped would turn into the co-owner of our white-picket-fence fantasy. Mine, only a year older than me, had been coming to the church with his family for years. An attraction was there, more of infatuation by default than a burning romantic love.

My friends and I had perfected the art of sitting in an area of the sanctuary that would allow us to look like we were actively listening during the service while we were actually just catching up or making future plans. We all had to be there, but we all began to discover this strange new world of our teen years together.

For a while it seemed to work. I had found a way to fit in and still go unnoticed. I went to church but didn’t participate. I sat with a small group of peers consistently. Being their pastor’s daughter naturally made me the leader of the pack. At the time I had no clue that a leader without direction is dangerous. Instead of using the influence to challenge us to become better, more diligent, and immersed
in God’s Word, I became more like the world around us. The blind leading the blind.

I knew the expectations were for me to set the standard. Whether it was clothing, jewelry, music, or movies, I decided that I would have to gain my friends’ respect by constantly staying on the cutting edge. I was the one leading our expedition into adolescence. So when we became teenagers and started having puppy love relationships and schoolyard crushes, it seemed like sex was the natural next step.

Three months later, I learned the cost of my exploration.

———

I knew long before I took a test on Easter of 2002 that I was pregnant. The signs came long before the plus sign appeared. Mainly, my cycles stopped coming nearly three months before I took the test. I was unusually tired, and the smell of some of my favorite foods began to nauseate me.

Still, I hoped that I had made a miscalculation or that the early-pregnancy symptoms were actually being caused by stress and not the life growing inside of me. I didn’t know the first thing about raising a baby or being a parent. It simply didn’t seem possible.

I stared at the pregnancy test, knowing that my life would be changed forever. I just had no way of knowing how.

Our Sunday ritual of sitting in the back, catching up on each other’s weeks, became my time for silent strategy meetings.
What will I do? Who
should I tell? When should I tell? What in the
world is going to happen after I tell?

My sister was the first person I confided in. Cora would also be the first person wise enough—or brave enough—to tell my parents. The day that she told them, I hardly remember any words that were
said. Torn between her loyalty to me and her responsibility as a big sister, Cora wrote a letter about my pregnancy and left it in the mailbox. But since we didn’t actually receive mail at the house, our parents knew it was from one of us. I couldn’t deny the letter and I couldn’t blame my sister. Based on my calculations, I was nearly four months along. The situation wasn’t going to go away, no matter how much I ignored it.

That night all six of us—my parents, Cora, Jermaine, Jamar, and I—sat in our living room for hours as a family. They needed answers. I had questions. We needed grace. I poured out all of my insecurities and answered as many questions as I could. I took in their shock. We made no plans for what was next. There was no time for that. I think we rested from the pressure of having to hold it all together. Instead, we took a moment to break down.

I went to my room that night, and it seemed with each step up the stairs my stomach grew more and more. It all became a reality. I crawled into my bed, drained from the emotions of the day. With my head on my pillow, I closed my eyes and cried. Their faces, shocked with grief and amazement, haunted me each time I closed my eyes. I replayed the conversation we’d just had over and over in my head, their soft, stunned voices asking me the next question. I could only try to drown the memories with my tears.

I felt a hand on my back rubbing in a soft, familiar circular motion. Then I heard Jermaine whispering everything would be okay. I fell asleep crying in his lap and woke up to his hand still glued to my back.

Over the course of the following week, I remember my family hugging me and hugging each other often. For the first time I realized the difference between a momentary struggle and a lifetime journey. My changing body being held together by their arms made me realize that this was so much bigger than being grounded.

You see, I got pregnant before our televisions were inundated with reality shows. I had no concept of what being a teen mom meant. I honestly don’t think I understood that my actions would affect not just me but the child inside of me, too. I didn’t know that I had crossed the bridge from childhood hugs to an adult embrace. No longer were they hugging me because in minutes I would be fine. Instead, they were hugging me because the road ahead of me was uncertain. They were hugging me because it was all they could do.

I still didn’t understand the ministry fully. I hadn’t yet faced an obstacle that required the type of worship that I was surrounded by each Sunday. I could feel God’s presence, but I had no wounds to offer up for Him to heal.

Some people learn worship by watching others. Others learn it by experiencing a struggle so great they have no other way to release the relentless shame, the terrifying fear, or unbearable pain. As someone in the latter category, I had my first adult encounter with God when I was a child, carrying a child, and pleading for grace.

———

The days following the revelation of my pregnancy were all filled with silence. It was how I knew that I was facing something that even my parents weren’t sure how to process.

When you miss an assignment or stay up past your bedtime, the parental words seem endless, because the consequences are evident. When you learn your child is having a child, though, I have to imagine it leaves you a bit speechless.

After the initial shock wore off, the first thing my mother did was take me to the doctor. I did not know how far along I was or what restrictions my pregnancy would involve.

The car ride to the doctor was the loudest silence I had ever heard. Swarming between us in the seats of my mother’s car were all the words that were left unsaid. I was scared in a way I had never experienced before.

I had never been in the kind of trouble that begat silence. My father is a preacher, my mother a drama enthusiast. They love language and are articulate people. There were few times when our home was rendered to silence. Like when my grandmother became ill and started living with us or the day we came home from school and learned our granny had passed away. Until my pregnancy, death had been the only agent powerful enough to render the walls of our home silent.

In many ways, I believe we were grieving the loss of a dream. Not many kids dream of becoming parents before they’re even able to drive. Most parents don’t imagine they’ll be grandparents while their children are still in high school. But this was our reality.

In an effort to protect our privacy, the doctor allowed us to come in around closing time. The doctor informed us that one of the first things we would have to determine was how far along I was. After taking my blood, checking my blood pressure, and running test after test, the doctor took me to another room.

Once I heard the hum of the monitor and saw the familiar utensils on the table, I knew that I was going to see my baby for the first time. Slowly, I walked to the table. A part of me was excited to actually
see the life inside of me. The other part of me wished I could offer him more than a confused teenager trying to find her way.

The cool gel spread across my stomach and chills went up my spine. It didn’t seem possible that this could be real, but I knew my limited mind could have never imagined this moment.

And then . . . there it was.

With the lights dimmed and our faces turned to the monitor, I saw my baby for the first time. Floating in the safety of my womb, this precious soul had no idea that I was thirteen. The baby didn’t know that I was T.D. Jakes’s daughter. Inside of me there was no danger of my baby being a casualty of church politics. No, this life could not fathom what kind of world was waiting.

Even when we don’t always feel safe, what’s inside of us is protected. Our destiny, our future, the key to who we are is protected even when we feel the least safe.

As my mother held my hand, I felt a single teardrop fall in the crack between our hands. That tear mixed with the sweat of our nerves, the excitement of a new life, the fear of an uncertain future, and a promise that no matter what I wasn’t alone. The doctor asked if we wanted to know the gender of the baby, and instantly I said yes.

I was having a boy.

The girliest girl on the planet, I would be bringing a son into the world. I had no name picked out in the back of my mind and no intuitive, maternal sense of what to do. I wasn’t even sure that I
could
do this. It’s one thing to have a baby. It’s another to have a baby at fourteen—and beyond comprehensible to become a parent with thousands of people watching you.

———

After Cora knew but before she told our parents, I told my small group of friends. They tried to imagine how drastically my life would
change. One of the older girls who hung out with us was the first to mention that my life didn’t have to change.

“You don’t have to keep the baby, you know,” she said.

I looked at her quizzically. “Really?” I asked.

“Sure, it may leave you a little hurt on the inside, but you can have a normal life if you get an abortion or give it up for adoption.” She looked at me knowingly. “Almost like it never happened.”

The thought of giving birth to my son and then later looking into the eyes of a little boy on the street and wondering if he was mine would kill me. I didn’t feel strong enough to do that. And the moment I heard his rapid heart beating inside of me and saw him darting from side to side inside my womb, I knew that I couldn’t end his life just so that I could live “normally”—if such a thing were even possible.

So here I was, almost fourteen and pregnant.

For almost a year before my pregnancy, my siblings and I were being homeschooled. With my parents’ busy travel schedules and the increasingly difficult politics of growing up Jakes, it seemed like being at home was the best choice.

Which helped now, because I didn’t have to explain my growing stomach to my teachers and classmates. It was as if God was protecting me from the added trouble my insecurities would bring. I was pregnant for nine months with my son, but it would take much longer for me to birth the woman I was becoming. As I look back, I’m convinced my pregnancy was the only way God could truly slow me down enough to show me who I really am. In many ways I was developing a son and God was developing Sarah.

In an effort to prepare for becoming a mother, I became completely secluded. Surrounded mostly by my family and close friends, I focused on my schooling, health, and learning all that I could about parenting.

After the initial shock of my pregnancy wore off, my parents became my coaches. My father told me, “You can recover from this, but you’re going to have to hit the ground running.” I knew that he was worried about me.

My own birth had been a shock to my parents. My sister was not quite three months old when my mother learned she was pregnant with me. For years after I was born, I was completely engrossed in my role as the baby of our family. My mother loves to retell the stories of me asking my father for something and him stopping whatever he was doing to get it for me.

When I was a little girl, maybe five or six years old, we were driving home from a late-night service at our church in West Virginia. Tired after such a long day, my sister and I cuddled up in the back seat of my parents’ Lincoln. We were both fast asleep in minutes, but I started waking up because I was cold.

In the front, my mother and father were having an adult discussion. You know, one of the ones you know you shouldn’t interrupt unless it’s an emergency. They were recapping the day’s service and catching up with one another, but soon I began to shiver. Lifting myself up a little, making my head visible in the rearview mirror, I whispered, “Daddy, I’m cold.”

I tried to whisper softy enough that I wouldn’t get in trouble for interrupting. Instantly, my dad stopped talking, looked back at me, and began urgently removing his jacket while driving. It was as if I had told him I was freezing inside an igloo instead of experiencing a slight chill. “Here you go, baby,” he said.

But now no jacket could protect me from the cold front of my life circumstances. Despite my parents’ best efforts, they could not cover me from the hateful stares, questions, rumors, gossip, and challenges I would face raising a child while not being much more
than a child myself. They vowed to face it all with me, though. Their loving support never wavered.

Together huddled in the safety of our home, my parents, brothers, and sister created a womb that would protect me while I developed into a mother. It was clear they loved me fiercely and unconditionally. It was one of the unexpected blessings during that season of uncertainty.

———

I turned fourteen on July 17 and was due to give birth on October 18, 2002. Usually, Cora and I celebrated our birthdays with dozens of girls sleeping over, at the movies, bowling, or in some other grand fashion. That year, I sat at the round table in my parents’ bedroom surrounded by my siblings and one small blue box.

Strangely enough, even without the typical party, that celebration meant more to me than almost any birthday up to then. At a time when my family had every reason to not celebrate my life, they still took the opportunity to let me know how much I mattered. It reminded me that there were some things my pregnancy had not changed.

During those months before my son was born, I learned more about my family than any Sunday at church had ever showed me. I learned that life may require us to take different paths, but we’ll always find our way home, back to each other.