Growth in the Waiting

Update: 6/20/2026 (The post was previously created with the help of ChatGPT. They were my thoughts, but not exactly how I would say it. I just posted this recently, yes, but having it as a post bothered me. I want this blog to remain authentic. I will never use ChatGPT to help write a post again. It was just this one, but I am sorry I used it. You will now find my thoughts AND words below.❤️) 

"Get ready for your increase."

"Increase is coming."

"Your spouse is coming."

You’ve heard these phrases before right?

Lately, I've been hearing them more and more, but the truth is, I've heard them off and on for years. Every time, I found myself becoming hopeful that maybe this would finally be the season everything changed.

Some times things changed. Things seemed to be leaning towards the promise.

As much as I try not to approach life with a negative mindset because I genuinely want to believe God for good things, but sometimes having hope is difficult. How do you keep believing when you've been waiting for so long? How do you hold onto promises when the reality isn’t matching what you’ve been seeing.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this lately.

I thought I’d be married by now. The reality is though, I’m glad I haven’t yet.

I wasn’t ready.

For a long time, I idolized marriage without realizing I was doing it. Marriage became the destination. I wasn't interested in the process. I wasn't thinking about friendship, connection, compatibility, or building a healthy foundation.

I just wanted to skip to the part where I was married.

Looking back now reveals how much growing I needed to do.

For years, I thought marriage would solve a lot of my problems. I thought it would fill the loneliness, provide security, and somehow complete the story I had written in my head. What I didn't realize was that I was placing expectations on marriage that it was never designed to carry.

The truth is, no person can heal every wound, erase every insecurity, or make us whole. Those are things only God can do.

It made me face myself. The reality I consistently denied without realizing I was doing it. I wasn't really asking God for His will. I was asking Him to give me what I wanted.

There's a difference.

Over the years, life has taught me that waiting isn't always punishment. It's sometimes just preparation.

Not the easiest thing to hear when you're tired of waiting.

Trust me, I know. 😂

There’s been many times where I prayed for breakthrough and watched other people receive theirs. I’d wonder why things seemed to happen so easily for others, yet nothing was happening for me. I questioned whether I had missed God somewhere along the way.

Through it all, God remained faithful.

I've realized that some of the greatest blessings in my life didn't come from God changing my circumstances. They came from Him changing me. From changing the way I saw things.

He taught me to trust Him when I couldn't see what He was doing.

He taught me to stop making an idol out of the things I desired.

He taught me that His goodness is not determined by whether I receive what I'm waiting for.

It's easy to praise God when the prayer gets answered exactly the way we want. It's much harder to trust Him when the answer seems delayed, unclear, or completely different from what we expected.

I've had to ask myself some difficult questions.

If the financial breakthrough takes longer than I hoped, is God still good?

If the relationship never happens the way I imagined, is God still faithful?

If the increase doesn't match what people prophesy, will I still trust Him?

Those questions reveal what we're really placing our hope in.

I've learned that hope isn't pretending everything is fine.

Hope isn't denying that the reality we are in isn’t real. Hope isn't forcing ourselves to be positive when we're hurting. Real hope is choosing to trust God in the middle of uncertainty.

We have to decide daily that God has our best interest in mind. He is still working. Our waiting has purpose. God sees the complete picture compared to the small piece we can see.

I believe this is what he’s been teaching me this whole time. The blessing isn’t simply on what we receive from him, the increase, the spouse. It’s in becoming whole in the singleness. Discovering that God is faithful during the journey.

I believe God can do amazing things and that he still answers prayers.

I believe breakthroughs are still possible.

Now instead of rushing Gods timing, I simply trust him.

A delayed blessing doesn't mean a forgotten promise.

And a season of waiting doesn't mean God has stopped working.

Shanda❤️