Blessing in the Betrayal

As little girls, we dream of the fairytale wedding. The perfect marriage and raising our children.
We day dream and fantasize about that beautiful wedding day full of glitter, glam, a big beautiful
dress, walking down the aisle to that wedding march we all know and love. You come down the
aisle, lock eyes with your knight in shining armor, who looks at you like his whole world lit up,
and you feel like you are the chosen one. He chose YOU to spend the rest of your lives with. You
dream of the house you will raise your children in, and settle in to start your family.

That sounds wonderful, but raise your hand if that is how it went for you in your reality. If it did,

I am so truly happy for you. Congrats!!! That is a dream come true. That sure wasn’t the case for

me. In fact, I did everything a little sideways. I was the fun party girl from high school and on

into my early adulthood. I loved goofing around and doing karaoke at the local bar. I low-key
wanted to be a singer/star if you will, and this was second best. This lifestyle did not land me on
the cover of rich and famous (Thank the Lord because that is not the life I would have loved) but
it landed me into single motherhood at the age of 25 with zero career or life goals. No knight in
shining armor, but lost hope in dreams and broken trust in men….

I had built a wall so thick that no man could knock it down. It was just me and my kiddo to raise. One thing my mom did do, through my childhood, was take my sister and I to church. I loved it. I loved God!!! Some of my favorite childhood memories were going to vacation bible school and bible camp. I got so excited to prep for that. We would go to Kmart (I am aging myself) and get the travel shampoo, toothpaste and deodorant for my trip. I felt so grown up ha!

 I loved going with my church friends, campfire worship, bible studies, learning about Jesus, feeling independent without the parents. It was a blast. But as peaceful as church was, stepping back into our house was a whole different story because our home life did not match as it was more chaotic. My dad had PTSD from Vietnam war, where he drank and did drugs to escape the war flashbacks. My mom tried to keep it away from us but it left a lot of confusion. I chose to go hang outside the house with friends to just be out of that, but that is how we all were so it seemed normal.

 My choice of friends were not the best influence, and as a people watcher and pleaser, I loved the ride. As I got older, God started slipping from my mind. My wild child ways landed me into single motherhood; The good thing was, this beautiful baby girl slowed me down. It was going to be baby, jail or death. I am so glad it was baby!!! I had gotten pregnant at 18 years old, and I did have an abortion, which was horrible, so that was NOT an option and I am so happy I chose wisely this time around. I lived with my daughter in my parent’s guest house. They were a great support for us and helped me a lot. After a year of not showing signs of wanting to date again, my mom asked me if I ever prayed to God for the right man to come along. We used to do these prayer journals back in the day together, so I thought why not start that again.

 I sat in my room with a journal and started a prayer. I asked God to send me a man who was caring, responsible and loving. I asked that he loved children, and would love mine like his own. I asked that he does not have any of his own (hey, I didn’t want baby mamma drama and it is my prayer to choose ha!!!) I asked that he love Hailey and I equally as a family. I asked that he have a sense of humor. I even said P.S. you can make him Italian! (What!!! I love Italians what can I say!!)

Six months later, my best friend Tina and I went to our local Karaoke hangout and there were
these guys sitting at the bar. Rather attractive, but cocky, the one kept saying things and I was
like “eh Tina, they are jerks”. Well, a couple of weeks later, my BFF says the cocky one asked her
out. Really??? Whatever ha. So she went and I told her “Fine, but they won’t be able to sit at
our table, just saying…”
I get to the karaoke bar early, a couple of weeks later, and lo and behold, the cocky gang was
sitting at the bar. I walk by and they all laugh and talk amongst themselves as they are watching
me walk by…..I go get our regular table and Tina comes and puppy dog eyed me to death so I
said “Fine, they can come sit with us!!!” Tina’s guy Matt and I would banter back and forth and I
just couldn’t see why she was liking him but, I started thinking he was funny and my guard did
eventually come down and I love Matt…He is like a brother to me. 

On that note, one of the guys, Gio as they called him, kept asking me to dance and after some time, I started liking him. He was funny, quirky and he had an accent I couldn’t place yet but he was growing on me. Remember, I had the wall up big time so I wasn’t easy to deal with. As we started hanging out, he began to tear my defenses down as fast as the fall of the wall of Jericho. His actual name is Giovanni Buccarelli, you can’t get any more Italian that that!! Born and raised! He was to a tee my prayer request to the point that Gio is not able to have kids and that was a struggle for us but that was God’s will and we have Hailey. God is so amazing!!!

He instantly took to Hailey and his family took her in immediately as their own. We became an
instant little family. They didn’t blink an eye. I love his family so much. It was definitely God sent
that we came together this way.
Two years later we got married. We had a beautiful wedding, the glitter, the knight in shining
armor and a cute little flower girl we called daughter to boot. The one thing that was missing
was God. We kept religion out. Gio came from a Mormon household and I the in and out of
Church life so we were not on that path of righteousness. As long as we were good people, we
didn’t need it. It wasn’t that either one of us didn’t believe in God or Jesus, just that we didn’t

need religion. So we thought… We had a non-denominal wedding on a beautiful golf course, not
a church because duh, we didn’t go to church. We were a family and it felt amazing. We were
getting started on our lifelong journey, for better or for worse, til death do us part!