It’s that season of life. My Facebook newsfeed is filled with friends my own age having weddings, having babies, having a brand-new life with a husband … and I – I still marvel at the fact that we’re not little kids anymore – that we’re actually old enough to do such things! It’s beautiful to watch such things unfold in so many of my friends’ lives, and I’m incredibly happy for them.

I have to laugh a little bit at the irony, though … because here am I, the girl who swore when she was little that she would never go to college – just get married at age 18 and have 8 kids … and that story is the furthest thing from my life right now! And yet … God has shown me that His plans are so much better than my own – that He can do things with me as a singleton that I could never do while married, and that it actually can be a good place. Elisabeth Elliot said it so well in her book Let Me Be a Woman – “Single life may be only a stage of a life’s journey, but even a stage is a gift. God may replace it with another gift, but the receiver accepts His gifts with thanksgiving. This gift for this day. The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived – not always looked forward to as though the ‘real’ living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.”

Let me not deceive you, and make you think that I’m one happy camper who’s always blithely happy about her stage in life. I’m not. My human heart does ache for more, and angst can often fill my journal entries about what I have not. But what I’m most thankful for are the whispers of God’s love to my heart in this season … and they often come out in letters to my future husband. The most beautiful treasure I own, these letters are meant to be read by only one man – the one God has chosen for me … but this particular one, I felt needed to be shared [hope you won’t mind, dear, wherever you are! :] …

March 20, 2012
” ‘Grow Something Beautiful in Your Garden While You Wait’ – A whisper from God this morning as I finished up my walk/run. I had just been spending time in much prayer as I went, and as always, finished up with prayers for you. I looked across an empty black parking lot to my left, and without my contacts in, it merged into a type of lake. And I felt like that’s how I am in life right now – standing at the edge of a lake, and you’re on the other side, on a distant shore. I can barely see you – you’re but a dim, blurry outline, and I can’t see your face … I can’t look long into those eyes of yours and tell you everything I want to say. And the hard part is – you won’t come around to my side until God says it’s time.

“How my heart resists that notion! But as I crossed the street to the other side – glancing at a nicely manicured lawn, I felt God saying to me – ‘No, it’s not time for that yet, but grow something beautiful in the garden of your heart while you wait. Grow a love even deeper for HYPE and CYT … grow mentoring relationships with younger girls … grow long-lasting friendships … grow faithfulness and purity for your one-day man … grow a deeper love for Me.’

“Who knows what precious things will grow out of the seeds sown at this stage in my life? I just can’t hurriedly and ignorantly rush past the beauty God has for me here as I’m trying to get to that which He’s saving for later. He knows my heart … He knows what I need best. And for His reasons, He knows I don’t need you right now. Oh, I might desperately think I do, but He knows better. He’s such a wise Father. Praise His name, isn’t He good to us?

“Lovely, I pray your garden would be growing beautiful things, too, so that someday when we come together, we can reap a most bountiful harvest together. I love you, my dearest, with all that’s within me.”

Praying for more grace every day … I remain, His daughter.