Growth in the Waiting

"Get ready for your increase."

"Increase is coming."

"Your spouse is coming."

Have you ever heard any of these phrases?

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 holding onto hope that maybe this would finally be the season everything changed.

Sometimes my circumstances improved. Doors opened. Things got better in certain areas. But other struggles remained. And here I am today. I’m older, wiser, and in many ways in a much healthier place than I was before. Some things still have a bit of a residue though, like financial challenges connected to past decisions and seasons of my life.

I try not to approach life with a negative mindset. I genuinely want to believe God for good things. But honestly, there are moments when any form of hope is difficult. How do you keep believing when you've been waiting for so long? How do you hold onto promises when your reality doesn't seem to match what you've been hearing?

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

One area where I've seen tremendous growth is in my view of marriage.

For a long time, I idolized it without realizing I was doing it. Marriage became the destination. I was focused. 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.

Seriously, straight to marriage! 😂

Looking back now, I can laugh about it, but it also 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.

And if I'm being completely honest, 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. Sometimes it's preparation.

I know that's not the easiest thing to hear when you're tired.

Trust me, I know.

There have been seasons where I prayed for breakthrough and watched other people receive theirs. Seasons where I wondered why things seemed to happen so easily for everyone else while I felt stuck in the same place. Seasons where I questioned whether I had missed God somewhere along the way.

Yet through all of it, God remained faithful.

Not always in the ways I expected.

Not always on my timeline.

But faithful nonetheless.

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.

He taught me how to be content when things weren't perfect.

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

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

And perhaps most importantly, He taught me that His goodness is not determined by whether I receive what I'm waiting for.

That one was hard. IS hard!

Because it's easy to praise God when the prayer gets answered exactly the way we wanted. 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 look like what everyone keeps prophesying, 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 reality.

Hope isn't forcing ourselves to be positive when we're hurting.

Real hope is choosing to trust God in the middle of uncertainty.

It's waking up every day and believing that even when we don't understand the process, God is still working.

It's believing that our waiting has purpose.

It's believing that God sees the full picture when we can only see a single piece of the puzzle.

And maybe that's what I've been learning all along.

Maybe the blessing isn't simply the increase.

Maybe the blessing is becoming the kind of person who trusts God whether the increase comes today, next year, or in a way I never expected.

Maybe the blessing isn't finding a spouse.

Maybe the blessing is becoming whole while I'm still single.

Maybe the blessing isn't reaching the destination.

Maybe the blessing is discovering God's faithfulness during the journey.

I still believe God can do amazing things.

I still believe He answers prayers.

I still believe breakthrough is possible.

But these days, my prayer is a little different.

Instead of asking God to rush me to the promise, I'm asking Him to help me trust Him in the process.

Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's this:

A delayed blessing doesn't mean a forgotten promise.

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

Sometimes He's doing His greatest work in us while we're waiting for Him to work around us.

Love Always

Shanda❤️