Thirty-Four
It was 2011 — I had just turned 26 when I heard God speak to me clearly,
You will have children at 34.
I sat up in my bed in shock. What?! I wrote in my journal, “I don’t know what this means for me… As someone who longs for a partner does this mean I won’t find someone for that long …?” I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to be married and have a family since I was a young girl. My sisters had always laughed at me. Of any of the four girls, I was the one who loved love the most. I always had.
…
Over the years, I have thought back on that moment, wondering if what I heard was true. It was a promise I initially held far away from my heart, but as the years went by, it was a word that I began to hold as God’s promise to me.
In the hardest days of waiting,
Moving days - after everyone went home and I was left rearranging my furniture alone or putting together a bed that was just not cooperating,
Car days - when my car needed to be taken to the shop yet again,
Wedding days - when the last of my three younger sisters got married before me and there were zero prospects on the horizon,
Church days - another Sunday morning forcing myself to show up to church alone,
Celebration days, travel days, and a bunch of random, very normal days.
It was in those days that God would sweetly remind me…
Thirty-four.
Of course, I doubted. Was it even God who spoke those words? Maybe it was my own voice in my head. And others had doubted as well. “Maybe you’ll just have kids at 34. That’s what he actually said. He didn’t say anything about a husband. Maybe you’ll adopt, and a husband isn’t part of your story.”
But in those quiet spaces, where it was just God and I — I knew. I knew that God was promising me a family. I knew that he would come through. I didn’t know how, but he assured me that he was going to deliver me in some sort of beautiful way.
…
On April 5th, on the eve of my 34th birthday, all had seemed hopeless. I had no prospects. I had just moved from Austin to Central Pennsylvania. How in the world was I going to meet a man and then have kids within a year? Adoption wasn’t possible. That takes too long. I wouldn’t meet someone, have the time to get to know them, get married, and then get pregnant in a total of three months’ time (to be able to have a kid by 34).
My sister Courtney sat across from me as I cried over our pizza. The ability for God to come through on his word to me was impossible. But she proclaimed, “If that’s what God said, then this is the year that God is going to come through. You should find hope in that.” But how?
…
Five months before my 34th birthday, we matched on a dating app called Bumble. I had been in Hershey, Pennsylvania for the day with Courtney, celebrating an awesome year of weddings at our Venue, The Cypress House. He (his name is Scott) passed within 100 miles of Hershey, four days later. We still aren’t sure how we connected. Bumble doesn’t work that way. We believe it was a miracle. My heart trembled as I saw his profile for the first time. I knew he was different. And when we met, it immediately felt like we were catching up and walking out the days that God had been writing in our story for a long time, behind the scenes. It felt like that because He was.
He’s always working in our waiting.
…
We had planned to be married in late May, which felt like a whirlwind, semi-crazy romance by my standards. We would have known each other just seven months on the day we got married. But, Coronavirus had canceled our May wedding plans and forced us to make the decision to either have a small ceremony early. Or — wait an indefinite amount of time to get married.
We knew we couldn’t wait. With the stay at home mandates being added day by day, and with my desire to at least have my immediate family in attendance, we knew we had to get married soon. It felt a bit like we were being bullied by Covid-19 — that it was forcing our hand and stealing our celebration and maybe even God’s glory.
Or maybe — this was God’s plan for us all along.
So, on April 2nd, 2020, nine years after God’s promise to me, Scott and I exchanged our vows with my family, on the property I grew up on, while our family and friends watched and celebrated on Zoom.
As I married Scott, just four days shy of my 35th birthday and five months after we met, I inherited an abundance of blessing and three children — Dylan, Jackson, and William. My family.
God came through at thirty-four.
His word to me was and is forever true.
…
Throughout this journey, God has brought me to many significant vistas along the path, where he would so clearly show me who he was and remind me of His promises. He brought me through the valley of weeping and led me through the door of hope. And along the way, I begged him that he would use every ounce of longing, every single second of long-suffering, to point people to him. I didn’t want those days to go to waste. I wanted him to be glorified through it all. And I wanted those I loved to find comfort in knowing that God speaks to us. He sees us. He knows what we desire. He created us to desire those things. He made us to crave beauty and plentiful redemption because the fulfillment of those mini promises to us are an affirmation of His love for us, His tremendous work on the cross, and His glorious resurrection. This all directs us to worship him for his best Promise— for those who believe in Him, we will not die but we will live with Him forever.
I believe that God is so meticulous with each part of your story because he has been with mine. And, as we see throughout scripture, God’s plan has always been perfect and it’s always been very specific. Nothing is being wasted right now in your life. All of it can be redeemed. Trust Him. Commit your path and your life to Him. Let him lead you because where He is going, I promise you — you will want to go.
