I was 13 years old when my mother became sick and it was only a three month long battle of ovarian cancer that took her life. I saw the sunken skin, rotting teeth, the coma, etc. I was 13 and I saw it all. As a 13 year old, I still needed her...heck, I'm 23 and I still need her. I still want her and I have had to learn how to keep living life when she lost her life. I spent most of my teenage years engulfed in getting high off of cough syrup, drinking alcohol, and going through in patient mental institutions just to TRY not to feel the motherless life that I was now being asked to live...by who...God? Because I sure didn't ask for it. How could he do this to my family? How could God do this to a 13, 15, and 20 year old with an alcoholic father? DOESN'T HE KNOW WHAT THIS WOULD DO TO US? He did.
At first it tore us apart. I grieved aggressively through substance abuse and mental implications. While my older sister grieved a little quieter and my father drank himself to jail, anger fits, and manipulation time and time again. But God knew.
Fast forward seven years and my sisters are my best friends in this life. At this time, I have become an adult who identifies with substance abuse issues BUT does not act on this as much as fantasizes how to not feel the pain of never having my mother to go to. I decided I had had enough and went away to bible college, thinking it would fix me. But it didn't fix me, it revived me. God knew. God in his grace, took me on this journey of self discovery while I was there, not in substance abuse or motherlessness but in Him. I always identified and measured my life by the amount of tragedy and grief I had gone through. I have always been one to feel deeply, whether in grief or excitement and while I have always loved music/played instruments, I never thought that God would use me in this. I began to have these intimate moments with the Lord through song and prophetic worship. And while I was at bible college I was able to serve on our worship team through leading songs and playing the guitar. What an experience! This became my safe haven. The intimacy that music can give you is how the Lord revealed himself to me in a season of self-discovery. BUT...
Fast forward two and a half years of specifically working on my relationship with God and myself... I went on a bit of a bender of my old ways when I went home for a weekend. This resulted in finding out I was pregnant in the middle of worship internship with my college. Summer of 2019, my life was turned c o m p l e t e l y upside down as I welcomed Jameson Lee into the world. People have sex all the time and never get pregnant, but I did after this one time. So much backlash from the Christian community, so much judgement towards myself, but also so much support from the people that God had put in my life through leaders and friends made at college. And yet again, I have to weather this without my mother who I KNOW would have given nothing but gracious support. Becoming a mother without a mother is always something I worried about after her passing and now that I am here, I am seeing the Lord in a way that I know I wouldn't see if she were here...because God knew. My son is the epitome of J O Y; something I always struggled with finding in my life with constant grieving.
Every season felt like yet another thing to figure out without my mom rather than something to enjoy. But God in his grace knew exactly what He was doing. He used my ability to feel so deeply and turned it into leading people into the intimacy of His presence through worship. He took my inability to find joy in life for years and gave me a son who gives people joy with everyone he comes in contact with. He is one now and I pray daily that God uses this natural joy in him for something G R E A T E R. So while I do love my mother and wish she could be here on earth to meet my son, I also know that I would not be where I am without her passing. It's humbling, really. To come to terms with her passing. It has lead me to see greater things, to grow up, and to be a mother that I am proud of being even though I don't have her to turn to. The Lord, so graciously, took the waves of my life that the enemy could have used to crush me, taking me higher. So that His glory could be seen in my life and experience Him ways that I never could have.
My name is Danielle Roose. I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. I am a mom to the best little boy, Jameson, and a lover of all things music.