Bumpy Roads Lead to the Best Destinations
The trees blurred past as I drove down the road. With tears running down my face, I continued to drive not knowing exactly where I was going, but just that I wanted to go anywhere that wasn’t where I’d been for the past five years. I finally pulled to the side of the road and with everything I had been holding inside of myself, I wept. I wept for the lost years of unrequited love.
I wept for the desire to be found and loved by the man I so desperately longed and prayed for. I wept because the sincere desire of my heart to be married to a Godly man seemed like an elusive dream.
Looking back on that moment, I know that even in that instant of hurt and longing, God was with me revealing truths that I now carry. He was teaching me that waiting builds character and discipline for the future. He was showing me that even when my heart was weak and burdened, He would never abandon me. As I cried on the side of the road four years ago, I was truly at my lowest. However, little did I know that God was developing the person I would later become.
In college, I dreamed of meeting and falling in love with my soul mate. From a young age, the culture around me emphasized the joy of being found by a man. This idea prevailed in pop culture and at times even the church. I grew up in a Pentecostal Christian family and from a very young age I was taught the importance of trusting God for a Godly man. Unfortunately, I wasn’t taught how to deal with the process of finding that man or facing the many challenges that would come during that process. There were no Sunday school classes on avoiding situationships, being ghosted, dealing with inappropriate DMs, or falling in love with someone who sent mixed signals. These very real scenarios were situations I had to stumble through and learn from myself. As senior year in college came and went, I still had not found my soul mate. A couple of years later, I graduated with my Master’s Degree and Mr. Right was still nowhere to be found. In fact, the year after I graduated, five of my girlfriends got married and I was in every one of their weddings. Even though I was truly overjoyed for all the happiness around me, there were moments where I would ask myself if God really saw me. There were moments where I would weep from the pain of longing. There were moments where going to church was a challenge and sometimes even painful. Yet in every brokenhearted, awkward, frustrating, and uncomfortable moment in my waiting, God was right by my side.
During my years as a single woman, God became my greatest confidant and source of comfort. He would remind me every day of how much I meant to him. He would gift me a beautiful sunrise every morning and every fall I felt like he would change the colors of the leaves just for me. During my season of waiting, God showed me just how much he loved me. Ultimately, in my years of waiting and desperately desiring love, I experienced the greatest love I have ever known. God gifted me a deep and intimate love relationship with Him and nothing will ever compare to it. In my waiting, God also taught me many lessons I now hold dearly. God used feelings of rejection to teach me to love when I was hurt. He used confusion to teach me to seek and accept His peace in uncertainty. When I felt lonely, He taught me to enjoy fellowship with Him. Lastly, He used my waiting to teach me to truly value and appreciate the gift of getting that which I desired.
After many years of waiting, stumbling at times, getting back up again, and enjoying a love relationship with God, the Lord sent me my heart’s desire.
God sent me a kind, loving, handsome, humble, committed, and Godly man. In fact, not only did I ask God for a man with all of those qualities, I also asked that I wouldn’t have to lift a finger to find that man, and God did exactly that! After all those years of waiting, God proved that he was listening and saw me the whole time. In fact, my fiancé is living proof of God’s attentive, thoughtful faithfulness towards me. Looking back, if things had gone my way, I would have been married at 24 to someone I met in college. However, if that had been the case I would not have met my incredible fiancé or become the person I am today. I would not have developed the deep and fulfilling love relationship I now have with God nor would I have learned the many lessons my journey has taught me. In fact, my story would not have been as unique and meaningful as it is today. With all of my heart I can confidently say that I am grateful things didn’t go my way. I am eternally grateful for every bump in my journey that God used to lovingly teach me who and whose I am.