A Million Miles Away

The past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about the verse that says “delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” It’s a verse that I’ve read a million times within devotionals that have to do with being single. 

Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed about getting married and becoming a mom. It’s been a desire of my heart for a very long time, and as I watch my friends around me getting married and becoming parents, I’ve wondered why I’m not. I’ve wondered if there was something wrong with me because I’m not married but instead I have a list of relationships that have not worked out and have actually been very painful for me. I’ve wondered anxiously if God is actually calling me into a life of singleness and if I need to give up that desire instead of trusting that God will fulfill it. 

I’ve also wondered how the heck I’m supposed to rest in the promise of Psalm 37:4 when it feels like God is taking me a million miles away from my desires. I remind myself to trust Him and be patient because His timing is perfect and mine is not. I remind myself to delight in Him and seek Him first and not my desires, but I still find myself getting frustrated sometimes.  Especially after realizing my love for children and taking care of them is actually a gift. 

I’ve been told by many people before the race and now by many of my squad mates that they think I will be an excellent mother, so again I wondered why that’s not the path God seems to be leading me toward. I’m on an 11 month mission trip where I’m constantly on the move to a new country and I’ve signed a contract which requires me to remain single. In my frame of thinking, this seems like God is keeping me away from the possibility of getting married and having children and therefore (at least in this season of life) not giving me the desires of my heart as He promised.  

As I’ve been talking to both The Lord about this and my friends, I’ve started to have a bit of a perspective shift. I’m currently in month 5 of the race and God reminded me that He has given me children to take care of every month of the race so far. No, I’m not a mother to any of those children; but what I did get to enjoy was stepping into my gift of nurturing. I’ve gotten to dedicate a baby, hold sleeping children in my lap, wipe tears away and laugh and dance with many little ones. 

Sure I am in a season of singleness, but I am living in community and surrounded by people who love me greatly. In my community on the race, we get to be the church, we get to encourage each other and point out how we see Christ in each other. We get opportunities to choose to love each other when things get really hard. We get to laugh and cry together. 

While I’ve been thankful for all the children around the world who have captured my heart and I’ve been thankful for the amazing girls on my team, I didn’t really see how it fit into God’s promise. Until debrief. 

Last week, we spent time at a hotel in Ghana with the whole squad, our mentor and our coaches. We got to worship the Lord, hear some of the wisdom our leaders have to share with us and process through the things we we’ve experienced. 

Night one of debrief, as we were worshipping, I was feeling very overwhelmed and homesick. As I was crying, the only thing I could think of was how much I wanted to hug my dad, but of course I’m not even in the same continent as my dad so that wasn’t going to happen. Again, the question popped into my head “how can I trust God to give me the desires of my heart when I’m a million miles away from them?” 

Then God moved. One of our coaches saw me and walked over to me and gave me a hug and then just sat by me. I heard God whisper to me “I see you and I love you.” No, Mike will never replace my dad and I still can’t wait to see my dad (and mom of course) and hug both my parents when they visit me in India. However, in that moment God invited me to take a look at the desires of my heart and allow Him to show me all the ways He’s been so so good to me. 

Maybe this whole time I’ve been looking at it wrong. I realized God has always been giving me the desires of my heart but I wasn’t recognizing it. I was only thinking about my interpretations of what my heart desires. I never thought about the fact that God actually knows my heart and not only knows what I want but also what I need. 

Maybe instead of desiring to be a mom, I actually just desire to nurture and care for children. Maybe my desire is to use the gifts God has given me and step into who he created me to be. Maybe I just thought that being a mom is the best way to do that so I thought of my desire to nurture as a desire to be a mom. 

Maybe instead of desiring to be married, I actually desire deep connection and relationship because God created me for that. Maybe I desire to experience the Love of Christ through being loved and loving others and I interpreted that desire as a desire to be married. 

Maybe instead of desiring to hug my dad, I actually wanted to be comforted by someone I know cares about me.  

You see, those desires I had that I thought God was not fulfilling are actually tied to deeper desires in my heart that God is definitely giving me. Those desires aren’t bad and I still have them, but rather than viewing them as something God is withholding from me I can look for the ways God is giving me the desires of my heart. I can be thankful for all the ways God is loving me well and I can look forward to the ways God will love me. I can ask God to show me how He is fulfilling His promises and trust that He is good and his word is true. 

Has God ever given you the desires of your heart in a way that looked differently than you expected it to? If you don’t know, I would encourage you to ask the Lord about it because it’s definitely a sweet conversation to have and it’s comforting to have you eyes opened to all the ways God has been so so good to you. 

Blessings, 

Kaci