I Delighted In The Lord

Miss Caroline's Country Wedding Chapel in Maggie Valley, NC

Well, last week I told you how we got our sweet Hannah Grace. This week I would like to tell you how my great God answered my prayer of 30+ years and brought me a husband. The fact that I'm married still amazes me! Although as a child, I dreamed of being a wife and a mom, that dream just never seemed to come to fruition for me. My college years came and went with no prospect for a husband. My 20s came and went...still nothing. My 30s came and went...and still nothing! My friends listened and encouraged me. Even though I used those years as a time to serve God and others and had a lot of time for deep, intense Bible study, I really struggled with the "why not me?" question. I had read literally dozens of books on marriage and how to be a godly wife. I was prepared. Why didn't anyone want me? Why can't I find a husband? Why do I have do life alone? What's wrong with me? My blood boiled when I heard other women complaining about their husbands! "Don't they realize the blessing they have?" I would say to myself. I was bold (or rude) enough to occasionally say to that complaining wife "At least you have a husband to complain about!" I cried many tears over my singleness. I think I was about 42 when I gave up. No, I didn't give up on getting married. I gave up fighting God about it.  I had finally become content in my singleness. Oh, I still wanted to get married but it was no longer an obsession. I turned my focus to serving Christ and others. I meant it when I told God that if He didn't want me to get married then I would stay single and I would trust Him to change my heart and heal my hurt. God had been working behind the scenes of both my life and my now-husband's life. Through a series of circumstances, we both ended up at First Baptist Orlando in the same singles LIFE group. Three months and 2 days after meeting, he asked me to marry him. Four months and 11 days after that, we were married in a cute little wedding chapel in Maggie Valley, NC. I can honestly say that he is the man that God intended for me. The circumstances in our lives was such that we could not have married if we had met any earlier. I couldn't see what God was doing, but He knew it all along. I learned a valuable lesson through those decades of unwanted singleness. I learned that even though I don't see what He is doing and don't understand what He is doing, I can still trust what He is doing.  Psalm 84:11b tells us that "No good thing does He withhold from him whose walk is upright." Do you have something in your heart that you deeply desire and have yet to see it fulfilled? Are you longing for something or someone? All I can really tell you is to keep your eyes on Jesus. Trust the Lord and walk in obedience to Him. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." the psalmist tells us (Psalm 37:4) We often forget that we have to do something before we get the desires of our heart. We have to delight in Him. When He is the source of and the object of our delight, we begin to want those things that He wants for us. It's not magic. It's faith and faith always has a beautiful result!

Blessings,
Teresa



February 17, 2007