What My Mother Told Me After My Divorce

She told me with her encouraging voice and said, "It's good you didn't have children with

her. God has plans for you." At the time her words felt cold.

I thought she was just trying to make me feel better, to patch over the emptiness with platitudes.

I could hear her opening her Bible and she read Jeremiah 29:11, "'For I know the

plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm

you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" I'd heard that verse before,

usually on graduation cards or coffee mugs. But in that moment, it felt different.