58. POSSIBLE BENEFITS OF MARRYING LATE

(The Called To Be A Wife Series – Batch 3)

Once a woman goes through her twenties and remains single into her thirties, she is often regarded by the masses (both in the world and by many in the Church), as having failed in life, of having no real purpose, significance and value, of not being spiritual enough and deserving enough in God’s eyes and of being under his awful curse or punishment. This is the case even where the woman, though she may be desirous of one day being married is content in the season that God would have her, even if she does not understand all of what he is doing or the reason or reasons for the delay.

Truth be told, there is an awful stigma attached to a woman that is still single and unmarried at an age that society considers to be downright unacceptable. I should know. I experienced it first hand: The pressure, the insults, the ridicule, the condescension, the dismissiveness, the judgment, everything. I went through it and in fact, am still going through it as a woman that is still single…and waiting.

Contrary to popular belief, I have no choice but to wait…on God. For, he has not yet, in all my life, caused a respectable, spiritually and emotionally mature, God-fearing man to cross my path with God-given interest, to pursue me for marriage.

As much as I had hoped to be married much earlier therefore, the fact is I am still single. In my years of singleness, I have learned that we can have our wishes but it is God’s will that will prevail. Despite the times when I sometimes feel down in the dumps therefore, I have learned how to wait patiently on the Lord. He has the right timing and when he is ready, if it is his will (which I believe it is), he will bring it to pass.

Continuing from that positive perspective, I have come to realize and appreciate that, as nice as it is to marry early (and this is definitely wonderful), there are also beautiful benefits in store for those that get married late.

I am in no way advocating that people should wait until older to get married. If I had to choose, I would have been married since my twenties. I am simply saying that, even if you had hoped to be married when you were younger but it has not happened as yet, there are still some blessings that you can give God thanks for, as a late bride.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 states: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

When you see life through positive lens therefore and you have the joy of the Lord as your strength, you are able to see the benefits in marrying late.

FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN YOU MARRY LATE:

(1) You have more time during your waiting season, to work on and develop yourself, your character, your academics, your career and to prepare to become a wife.

Unlike many other women, you have been afforded precious time which you can invest in making yourself better and in planning for and preparing to take on the role of wife and mother, so that when your season eventually changes, you will be of even greater benefit and value to your husband, your family and the world in general.

(2) Although this is not a full-proof guarantee, it is highly likely that when God does send someone, that he would already own a home that he built from scratch or purchased or he would at least own a piece of property upon which the marital home can be built. It is also highly likely that he would be in a much better financial position than he would have been, had you met him, say eight years ago, as he would have had time to save and save and save, in preparation for his one day family.

In such a case, he is therefore better able to provide for your needs and that of his eventual family, should the Lord bless you with children. If you don’t yet have your own house or land, you therefore benefit from not having to find and incur a significant amount of expense (in addition to that involved in planning your Wedding), in order to pool funds to purchase land or a home and you also don’t have to wait years until that home is built.

You would also not be throwing money down the drain in having to rent until you can afford to buy or build a home. For, your spouse-to-be already has one! In marrying him, you simply become lady of the Manor! You also would not have to have a fresh mortgage taken out, as, if your soon to be spouse took out a mortgage years earlier, he would have already covered some years of repayment, meaning lesser of a headache for you.

I actually know of someone who married late and was able to benefit in this way, as her husband, in his singleness, had felt led by the Lord to start building on land he owned. For, the Lord knew that it was in HIS plan to provide him with a wife one day and He therefore saw to it, that this man got busy building, in anticipation of this. By the time his wife entered the picture, this man already had a new house waiting and all she had to do was move in (after marriage) and assist in furnishing, decorating and beautifying it with her feminine touch. Such is the blessing of the Lord!

(3) You get to focus exclusively on Jesus, your relationship with him, your God-given purpose and deepening your spiritual intimacy.

There is no distraction in this waiting period (which a man can sometimes become), so that it is just you and the Lord, without interruption. This is a most beautiful relationship and much more important than any relationship you could have on earth. For, it is eternal, whereas earthly relationships are temporary. Also, this relationship is between you and the God of the universe, the one who created you and redeemed you to himself due to the wondrous love he has for your soul. No man could ever hope to come close to this kind of love. He could only try to emulate.

This season is therefore valuable, as in your wait, you get the opportunity to grow in spiritual maturity, wisdom and Christ-likeness. You also learn to depend on the Lord, not having a man to fend for you or protect you, as you face life’s challenges and you become spiritually strong and resilient.

During this season, as you draw close to God, he demonstrates his love for you and this time at the Master’s feet is so sweet, that, although you desire a husband and a family of your own, you get to the place where you feel truly complete in Him. You find yourself wondering (as I did at one point), where your husband will fit when he finally comes, as it has been Jesus and you for so long and you want nothing to disrupt that.

Thankfully, God will find a way for the seamless transition from just you and Him to you and Him and your husband. However, your individual relationship with him will still be important to maintain.

On the whole, this time spent with Jesus during your single years, redounds to the benefit of your one-day husband, as he meets you at a point where you have grown spiritually and have a great level of God-given wisdom, character and strength, which he is sure to appreciate and draw from, when he seeks your perspective and advice on an issue.

This time spent with Jesus, also makes for great spiritual intimacy with your husband when he comes, which in turn will keep refueling your emotional and physical intimacy as a couple, throughout your marriage. When Jesus is at the source and he is at the heart beat of a relationship and when he is your mutual passion, nothing gets boring. Married life would always be exciting. For, Jesus is alive, he is the source and he is love itself.

(4) As you are afforded time to grow in wisdom, you get the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others so that you can avoid them.

For example, you get the time to observe the relationships of couples and of the decisions made by those who got married before you. You are able to take away from your observations, what to do and what not to do, what pleases God and what does not.

Learning from the mistakes of others, for example, that sister who disobeyed God and got married to an unsaved man or that sister who rushed hastily into a marriage for the wrong reasons and has now been deserted by her husband, you get to avoid making those same mistakes and therefore are more likely with God’s help, to align yourself with a quality gentleman, to take the time to build a strong foundation (because you have come to realize the importance of it), to stick close to the Word’s instructions and to have a very successful and inspiring marriage one day.

God, in his mercy, has had you wait and observe and learn, so that when it is your turn, you can build something truly beautiful, that is sustainable. You are ever thankful, as had you found someone in your younger years, you may have made the same foolish decisions that you have seen others make and you may have ended up where they ended up, their relationship having been destroyed or soured.

(5) You get time to become more self-aware.

That is, you get to figure out and think through who you really are, what you stand for, what you can tolerate, what you can’t and what you believe in. Many people who marry really early on sometimes grow apart, as they change throughout the years and this creates distance between them and their spouses. Some get to the point where they wonder what they ever saw in the person. This is because a twenty year old woman who gets married at that age is not the same as the thirty two year old woman that she will become.

Many factors account for this. For starters, she may not have educated herself as much back then but now, she has her Masters. Also, people generally grow and change in their perspective on things, as they physically get older. The later you marry therefore, the more settled you will be as a person in terms of knowing who you are and what you are about. You are able to make more mature decisions for example, in terms of who to court and eventually marry.

At twenty years of age, your ideal spouse may have been someone tall and handsome with a nice car and able to make you laugh. However, at thirty two, you see the emptiness of those requirements and you are now wanting a man that loves the Lord, that is submitted to his leading, that knows how to lead a family, that displays Christ-like character, that is ambitious and that will be able to love you like Christ loved the Church. You realize that these are the traits that make for successful, long-lasting and sustainable relationships and you have had the time to process what you want and what you don’t want in a man.

By the time he comes therefore, although you do not expect him to be perfect (because you are not), you have your list ready, your questions ready. It will not just simply be he carries you out to dinner and stares into your eyes and whispers sweet nothings into your ear but your years of preparation will enable you to figure out who you truly are what you truly want in a spouse, the kind of guy you want to align yourself with, whether an interest is aligned to your purpose and you will be able to bring up and focus on the issues that need to be discussed, so that you can determine if this man is God’s pick for you or not.

(6) You get to have a powerful testimony.

That is you get to knock the socks off people in shock, particularly those who wrote you off as a failure a long time ago because of your single status. They may have thought it was all over for you BUT GOD! Due to your age and years of singleness, many people would have given up on the possibility of you ever getting married because they forgot that it is not by might, nor by power but by God’s spirit that miracles happen (Zechariah 4:6 KJV).

Hence, you practically having been given up on for dead because in people’s minds, too much time has passed and you are too old, is the perfect setting for a testimony, of God raising you back to life, just like he did with Lazarus after four days of him stinking.

(7) You don’t have to worry about birth control.

If you had married much earlier and found that you were extremely fertile, after the numbers started rising with your kids, you and your husband may have thought it feasible to use protection during physical intimacy. That would have meant that nothing could happen if you were out of stock and had forgot to replenish. Alternatively, you may have opted to take some form of birth control and to keep taking it for years and years.

However, the beautiful thing about marrying later is that if you want children and are still able to have one, you don’t have to use any form of birth control, ever. You can simply focus on enjoying your time with your husband without inhibition, as, even if you get pregnant (which you would welcome), given your age, you know that there is no possibility of things getting out of control in terms of several pregnancies. God may give you one, two or three but you know there is no danger of you ending up having an army of them.

(8) You and your husband (which I assume will be close in age), will be mature in your perspective and outlook on life and on what really matters and what doesn’t.

For, age brings maturity and you get to enter a marriage with someone who has learned throughout the years, through different circumstances, to be level-headed and responsible. You will not be entering into the marriage union as two young, clueless ear-heads but as mature grown-ups.

This can only augur well for your marriage and is highly likely to contribute to marriage bliss. For example, if you used to be a reckless spendthrift in your early days, age and adversity brought reason. You have learned (while not being a miser) to save for the rainy day. If shiny, flashy cars was all your husband used to think about and invest in in his younger days, he has since outgrown that nonsense and now you get to be with a man that is now more interested in being able to provide a home for his future family.

(Written on 10th October, 2020)

ADDENDUM

On 02nd March, 2021, still single and not yet presented to a man after God’s own heart, I prayed something to this effect:

• “Father in heaven, I know that whatever you have willed and purposed will come to pass, although I can’t possibly figure it out or predict it or analyze how you will move and how you will do it. I know that some people look at my age and they have given up on me but I see nowhere in the scriptures where age disqualifies. You know that my heart is full of gratitude to give you public praise if you should see it fit to provide me with a spouse and to bring conception to this womb. Extract all the glory from my life, in Jesus’ name, Amen.“

Dear Reader, if you found the above Article to be beneficial, edifying or interesting, then I recommend you also read the following on my ‘SINGLE Daughters Of God’ Page:

• Note 2 – ‘I Desire To Be Married’
• Note 9 – ‘Tidbits God Deposited Into My Spirit As A Single Woman’
• Note 11 – ‘A God-approved Marriage Union – A Work Of Grace’
• Note 40 – ‘Please…Allow Him To Blow Your Mind’
• Note 41 – ‘Silencing The Naysayers’
• Note 71 – ‘Keep The Right One From Me Lord, Until…’
• Note 136 – ‘How I Used My Single Years To Pray, Preach, Plan and Prepare’
• Note 142 – ‘Single Woes – The Battles We Singles Fight Everyday’
• Note 171 – ‘If That Tree Could Talk’
• Note 174 – ‘They Can Think Whatever They Like – God Will Do Whatever He Pleases’
• Note 191 – ‘When God Blows Your Mind With His Answer And Leaves You Flabbergasted’
• Note 193 – ‘God Calls Me Hephzibah’
• Note 195 – ‘When God Promises To Write-On A Write-Off’
• Note 196 – ‘A Hopeless End Or An Endless Hope?’
• Note 197 – ‘Left For Dead…Then Resurrected’
• Note 213 – ‘God – Sometimes Silent But Ever Present’
• Note 214 – ‘Your Story Is For His Glory’
• Note 215 – ‘Our Difficulty Is God’s Opportunity’
• Note 216 – ‘Death Must Come Before The Resurrection’
• Note 217 – ‘From Bad…To Worse…To Deliverance’
• Note 254 – ‘Seven (7) Reasons Why You May Still Be Single’
• Note 265 – ‘Dear Future Husband, About Me…’
• Note 268 – ‘When You Don’t Wait On The Lord To Introduce You To Your Spouse’