By Katie Powell Bell 
I remember driving home from college one particular weekend and fervently praying to God some version of “Please let him ask me out.” So many of my girlfriends were pairing up and in love, and I wanted to be too. I thought, If God would only answer my prayer, everything would fall into place.
While I partially blame Freed Hardeman for slipping in phrases like “three swings and a ring” into the chapel commentary, I also blame the copious amounts of chick flicks I would binge with my girlfriends that made love look so easy. And living in the South, you’re raised to just know that the natural progression after high school is college, then marriage. I wasn’t sure if there was any other path. Ah, how silly and badly misguided I was.
I have thanked God so many times that He did not give me what I asked for then.
God’s answer was to wait.
His plan was for me to grow up.
As it turns out, His plan was a little more involved and much more of a rollercoaster.
His plan involved traveling to Chicago and then Nashville, gaining incredible life experience and building a career from long hours in the office and lots of Googling. His plan meant living with my best girlfriends—laughing for hours and feeling so safe and loved—figuring out life together in that strange/amazing time after college graduation, but before walking down the aisle. His plan also meant getting my heart broken by a guy and by the world, and learning lots of lessons the hard way, ultimately teaching me I couldn’t force God’s hand.
So I waited.
I adjusted my priorities, relinquished control as best I could, and told God I would wait on Him. Would I marry? Would I become a mom? Would my job bloom into a successful career? My dreams and doubts were always there, but my prayers helped keep them at bay, drawing me nearer to whatever God was cooking up.
His plan, His timing.
His plan to send me a charming, tattooed preacher man who was fiercely devoted to God was an answer far better than anything I had previously asked for and better than I could have ever imagined. He had known my family for years, and somehow we had never met. God had had this plan all along.
Nearly seven years and a whole lot of life lived later, I sit holding our son, and we clap while my dream husband twirls our daughter around the room as jazz plays throughout the house. Her giggle is infectious, and I watch my husband smile at her. I melt because they have the same eyes. I’m behind on work and wishing I had more hours in the day, but hey! I’m doing the working mom thing with a company I adore, and we’re doing important work. The house is a wreck, and my hair is half-dry shampoo at this point, but I have never been more content.
Everything in my past has led me here, to this moment, where I am wife, mother, and above all, Christ-follower, thanking God multiple times a day for this family only He could create.
If I could go back and tell my college-aged self one thing, it would be to wait on the Lord. He’s got a plan, and I don’t have to know every detail to know He makes everything beautiful in its time. “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” – Psalm 27:14 (ESV) “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” – Ecc. 3:11 (ESV)
Thank you, Lord, for not answering so many of my pleading, blind, please make this happen prayers.
They’re things I thought I needed that, looking back, would have completely wrecked me.
I preach and practice gratitude, typically focusing on all the extravagant ways God has blessed me, but today I thank God for all the things that didn’t happen.
The job offer I didn’t accept.
The guy who wouldn’t commit.
An accident He prevented.
A door that cracked but then closed.
The illness that didn’t get worse.
The trip that never happened.
The house we didn’t buy.
The path I didn’t take.
God loves me so perfectly that He hasn’t given me all that I have asked for—He’s given me more.
by Valeria Tipton 
by Lauren Gonzalez 
by Kyle Means 
