By Andrea Guachalla
When I was single I longed to get into a godly relationship. When I started a relationship I longed to get engaged. When I got engaged I longed to marry my amazing fiance. And now that I’m married I long to have children. And I am sure that when I have children I will still be longing for something else… I’ll long for them to come to true faith, and I’ll long for them to make wise decisions, and I’ll long for my husband to stay healthy as we age….
And that’s how years pass by… We wait for the next thing to happen, the next achievement, the next stage of life, and maybe… Just maybe, we forget to enjoy and savor the present time.
I don’t believe it’s bad to long for things that are scriptural. After all, Psalm 37:4 says God will give us the desires of our heart, and those desires will of course go in accordance with His Word.
It is good to long for marriage and having children. It is God-honoring and wise to prepare spiritually, emotionally and physically for the next stages of life, but only as long as they don’t become an idol and start taking God’s place. And you know when they have taken God’s place when you start raising your closed fists at the Lord when you are not getting the things you desire so much.
In the future, in God’s perfect timing, I want to have many children and raise them to honor God, their parents, and be of service to the church and society.
I long to be a mother.
And that is good, but only if I remember to enjoy being a wife to my husband now, in the present. Only if I remember that God owes me nothing, while I owe Him everything and that everything I have longed for is a mere reflection of me ultimately longing for Him.
So as I wait patiently, I choose to hold my hopes and dreams with an open hand, trusting that the sovereign Creator has written my story in eternity.
