Greetings!
My prayer lately has been, "God, please restore my desire according to Your plans for my life.... restore my desire for marriage."
It aches. But it is good.
Are you ready to ask Him to restore your desire too?
It is time to post again, and to pray again! Are you with me? I begin with a bit of my story...
“…And they lived happily ever after…”
Joy was the word in all of our minds for the spectacular wedding, on a gorgeous July weekend at the beach. My beautiful niece Cally married her handsome prince Marshall, and the celebration was filled with love, hope, joy, and promise for happily ever after.
Let me share with you the context of their wedding related to my life... My parents had just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, and they have an incredible love story. I am the youngest of four with a gap of seven years. My sisters were married in their early 20s, my brother at 30, and between them I have twelve nieces and nephews. Cally and Marshall’s wedding was the 6th celebration of one of my nieces. Because good marriages were modeled in my family, I never doubted that I would marry early in my life and have a family, and I certainly never imagined that my nieces would be getting married before their aunt Barbara.
By this sixth wedding I had gotten over the, “woe is me, the 47 year old aunt who has not been married, and I can’t even get a date for the wedding!” Oh yes indeed, I did have fun! No sulky aunt syndrome for this party girl. Oh no, my siblings, parents, in-laws, nieces and nephews know how to have a great time celebrating the miraculous event of a wedding, and we certainly had fun.
Perhaps the handsome man occupying my thoughts that weekend was giving me a bit of hope, even though he chose not to join me at the wedding. We had been on a few dates, over a few months, and my imagination of the potential relationship caused me to leave the post-wedding family 4th of July celebration, and fly home early, because there was a slim possibility that I could maneuver a date with the pilot!
My plan was going quite well on that 3rd of July, arriving at the airport in Denver just in time to see him in his dashing uniform. We enjoyed candlelight cocktails on his balcony with fireworks in the distance, but then..... his plans did not line up with MY plan! The pilot chose his friends over me on the night of the 4th, which was a big disappointment because I was home alone on the 4th of July night... again. I understood, he had other plans, and I quickly turned my attention to prepare for our big date the following night. I was scurrying around, getting ready for a romantic mountain adventure, when the pilot called. He quickly said, “I don’t think we should go out again, I just don’t feel a deep connection.”
Wham! Wallop! Ouch.
Rejection... again.
Disappointment... again.
Hope deferred.... again.
The pilot was not the source of my pain, he just represented all of the other guys who were not my Prince Charming. I had been praying for over 20 years for a husband, and a lot of other people had been praying for me too, including the 3 year old daughter of my niece.
“Hello! God? Oh YOUUU-HOOOO! Are you forgetting about me? I think it is my turn now? I don’t want to be pushy, and I think learning patience, endurance, self-control and all that stuff is great, but I think my character is building just fine now.”
With each passing wedding, and each man who chooses another, once again I felt like the fourth grader who was the last one picked for the kickball team at recess.
Through the years I’ve learned that I have a choice in how I respond. My response to the pilot’s rejection, and the disappointment was not to wallow in despair, I did not get mad at God and lose my faith (OK - I was frustrated with God for a bit.) I chose to trust Him, and thank Him for closing the door to a man who looked good on the surface, but who was not good enough for me according to my Father God. The tall handsome pilot was not the man God had planned for me to marry.
My personal disappointment transformed into frustration at the whole unmarried situation - not just for me, but for the many other women and men who are aching to be married to the right person. I have friends all over the world, from London to Argentina, to Hong Kong, who are praying for the person God has for them to marry. Is there a reason that so many delightful, attractive, passionate, God loving people are not finding their marriage partner? Only God knows the answers to all of our questions.
After the pilot episode, in my spirit and my mind I heard the whisper of a phrase, “40 Days of Declarations”, and I knew that I was to commit to 40 days of prayer for Kingdom marriages. It was an unction to fight the scheme of the enemy to disable God’s people through disappointments, preventing us from being the powerful people we are meant to be. So the prayers were not just any prayer, I made a commitment to 40 days of speaking and declaring God’s truth, His powerful Word, out-loud over my disappointments and into the future for His Kingdom to come, and His will be done, on earth as it is planned in heaven. I invited others to join me, and a small army emerged of both women and men making declarations over Kingdom marriages, and the testimonies of marriages continue to emerge.
The 40 Days continued into a blog, and 8 months later I met a man!
The story will be continued.....
