351. STILL SINGLE – SHOULD I STOP PRAYING?

(The Single Woman Series – Batch 7)

It is a few minutes after 4.00 on a Wednesday afternoon and while sitting at my work desk about to pack my things up for the day, I felt the need to pray again to God, to pour out my heart to him and to let him know my petition. For, today was one of those days where I felt strongly the need for a companion, a husband. I longed to have someone to love me but moreso, for me to pour love out to and today, the desire I felt to be a wife was stronger than on other days. I therefore prayed again, no tears, just prayers.

This may be the hundredth time or more that I have prayed over this very issue and it has been twenty (20) plus years of me approaching God’s throne to ask for the same thing but I did.

I thought to myself afterwards that, although I was getting visibly older and so much time had passed without God having provided what I had been asking for all these years, I kept finding myself compelled to keep going back to ask for a spouse, for five (5) reasons. These are as follows:

ONE – I know that God is able.

As I have told God, I wouldn’t keep coming and asking, if I didn’t believe that he was able to grant what I had been asking for. It would take nothing short of a miracle, yes but he is the God of miracles! I see it all over his Word! I therefore KNOW that this is something that he can do, that is in fact easy for him to do and so I keep asking.

Ephesians 3:20 also states, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us…”

TWO – I know that God is merciful.

Yes I have sinned against him in grievous ways, been rebellious, stubborn and disobedient, which I have admitted and confessed before him but yet because I know that he is compassionate and merciful, I still hope in his mercy. I know that I don’t deserve a husband and a family of my own and that all the pain I feel in my loneliness is less than the punishment I deserve for all my wrongs but I know that God is merciful. I therefore keep finding myself praying, confessing what I’ve done wrong and that I know I don’t deserve what I am asking for but STILL trusting that peradventure, he may decide to have mercy on me.

I am mindful of the words of the prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:31-32 and 49-50 when he declared, “For the Lord will not cast off for ever:But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies…Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission. Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.”

THREE – Marriage is a God-ordained institution and family the way he intended it, is his plan.

It is a good and noble thing that I am asking for because having a companion and entering into a marriage covenant is of God. He has said in his Word that “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Genesis 2:18). I therefore pray and hope that he would have equipped me and continue to mould me in such a way, that I can be a help meet or compatible or rightly suited for one of his sons. His Word also states that marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled (Hebrews 13:4) and I have seen where he put men and women together in the Bible and beautifully so, like Isaac and Rebekah and Boaz and Ruth. What I want is not man’s idea or man’s creation. It is God’s design. I want his plan for male-female love relationships and nothing else and I also want his choice of a spouse and in his timing.

I can’t help but KEEP going back in prayer and making my petition known to God because what I want is what he designed. I see the beauty in a husband and wife relationship done his way and I acknowledge that the institution of marriage that he created is best. I therefore desire exactly that, not the dysfunctional and immoral models of relationships that the world offers. God said it is not good that the man should be alone (Genesis 2:18) and it is truly my desire to be a help meet for one of his sons. This brings me to my fourth point.

FOUR – I still have the desire to be a wife.

Years have passed and time with it but I can’t seem to shake it. There are times when I put it to the back of my mind but undoubtedly, the desire still lurks. After twenty plus years of being single and people having long given up on this dream ever materializing, I STILL harbour a desire to be a married woman, to spend my life with someone special and to derive all of the benefits that such a wonderful union brings.

FIVE – I believe that God promised.

Sometimes, as I see the years flying by, I wonder if I heard right but in 2013, while having my morning devotions, a scripture from a page I randomly turned to, suddenly rose up (although I could not see it) and planted itself right in my heart. I could never forgot it, as it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It was as if the Word came alive (and it is alive), rose up and deposited itself firmly into my heart, where I could not remove it. I certainly felt the impact.

Since then, no matter what I go through, I have been holding on to that Word, still trusting that God would bring it to pass. Some days admittedly, my strength and faith is weak, doubt tries to creep in and the enemy whispers, “If you heard right, don’t you think he would have done it by now? Look at how much time has passed!”

Yet, I remember Jesus’ words to the effect that his sheep hear his voice and I definitely felt that I heard his voice in that moment in 2013, not audibly but yet distinctly. He did not so much speak to my ears as he did my heart. I felt that he took the Word I read and deposited it indelibly in my heart, where it remains to date. I can’t uproot it and neither can the enemy of my soul. Even in my weak moments therefore, where doubt tries to creep in and to convince me that I never heard from the Lord, that it was just coincidental and that what I claimed occured was all the product of my wishful thinking, the hope planted in me by that Word, never dies.

The scripture that my eyes randomly glanced at that morning in 2013 and immediately when I opened my Bible and where I felt that God had taken his Word and put it deeply into my heart as a promise of what he would one day do for me was a part of a sentence which read: “…joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.”

It was twelve (12) long years ago but the memory remains fresh. Those words rose up off that page (which I did not see physically) and hit me right in my heart like a ton of bricks that morning but in a good way. I felt in that moment, that God had made me a promise, that I would one day be a joyful mother of children and since his will is for children to be conceived in a marriage, I believed that it was his way of letting me know that he would provide me with a husband, the father of my children.

If I recall correctly, on the very same day of this incident, I later got what I felt at the time was devastating news, as my hope that a particular gentleman would be the one I would marry were suddenly dashed into painful pieces. He was engaged to someone else! In retrospect, I felt that the scripture prepared me. God knew what was coming and I felt that he had given me a precious promise in advance, which, despite everything to the contrary, he wanted me to hold on to it in hope and never let it go.

Although I was in pain over the news and for quite some time therefore, I held on to God’s Word, believing that somehow, some way, he would grant me someone that was mine to love one day. Since then, as the Psalmist prayed to God in Psalm 119:49-50, my prayer has been to the same effect: “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.”

Truth be told, ever since I felt that God had planted his Word in my heart in 2013, I have never completely let go of hoping and trusting that he will work this miracle in my life someday. Sometimes I falter and I think, given how much time has passed and that I am considered to be past the normal childbearing age, that it was just me imagining things and reading into God’s Word what I wanted to hear, not necessarily what he told me. Yet I reason that even if that were to have been the case, God is still able to do what I am hoping in him to do and so I keep praying.

Whether faint as a flicker or strong as a mighty flame though, what I believed I heard with my heart in 2013 as I read God’s Word, has never left me. After all these years, something in me STILL believes despite all the odds, that God will do EXACTLY what the scripture said, in my life. And so, this, along with a similar experience in 2014 when I believe God planted yet another word of confirmation in my heart when I was reading the Bible, has caused me to keep praying for a spouse, me knowing that for God to provide this, he would be drawing from a limitless fountain, there being no scarcity of quality gifts when it comes to his provision. James 1:17 states that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

(Written on 8^th October, 2025, added to thereafter)

Dear Reader, if you found the above Article to be interesting, informative, beneficial or edifying, you may also be interested in reading the following:

Note 2 – ‘I Desire To Be Married’
Note 7 – ‘I Wanted A Husband So I Petitioned The Throne Of Grace For One‘
Note 11 – ‘A God-approved Marriage Union – A Work Of Grace’
Note 24 – ‘The Road From You (Boaz) To Me (Ruth)‘
Note 25 – ‘When Loneliness And Impatience Set In’
Note 30 – ‘When God Gives You A Promise…‘
Note 31 – ‘God Loves Persistence – Fight On!‘
Note 42 – ‘When That Door Wouldn’t Budge‘
Note 50 – ‘Making Sense of the Awful Stillness – The Process of Metamorphosis‘
Note 52- ‘Bringing God Glory On The Road From Being Gloriously Single To Graciously Married’
Note 54 – ‘Cause Me To Be Seen Lord‘
Note 55 – ‘I Want To Go Where I Have Never Been Before‘
Note 60 – ‘Send Me Such A Man‘
Note 63 – ‘When My Turn Comes…‘
Note 65 – ‘It Is Such A Privilege To Be Presented‘
Note 70 – ‘Has He Forgotten Me?‘
Note 71 – ‘Keep The Right One From Me Lord, Until…‘
Note 73 – ‘Wait For Your Ice-Cream‘
Note 74 – ‘The Devil Is A Liar‘
Note 75 – ‘The Danger Of Impatience – He’s Taking Too Long‘
Note 122 – ‘The Woman Who Wanted A Baby – Key Points From Hannah’s Story’
Note 123 – ‘We Serve A ‘Let There Be’ God‘
Note 124 – ‘Are You One That Has To See Before You Can Believe?‘
Note 126 – ‘Will He Make It?‘
Note 127 – ‘I Believe That It Is Possible, Even Now‘
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 146 – ‘Three Idols In the Church: Getting Married, Having Children and Working A Secular Job‘
Note 150 – ‘What the Bible Has To Say About Singleness, Marriage and Widowhood‘
Note 155 – ‘Prayer, Using Words From God’s Word‘
Note 164 – ‘Seven (7) Mindsets That Will Keep You Stuck In The Land Of Sterility‘
Note 261 – ‘Seven (7) Ways To Do Single With A Good Attitude While Hoping To Be Married‘
Note 263 – ‘Nine (9) Lies The Enemy Will Tell You As A Single Christian Woman‘
Note 264 – ‘Lord, Why Aren’t You Blessing Me?‘
Note 311 – ‘How To Make A Man Love You‘
Note 312 – ‘Running Out Of Time But Still Single‘
Note 314 – ‘Why I Refuse To Give Up’
Note 315 – ‘Celebrating Life, Though Single‘
Note 316 – ‘Married, At What Cost?’
Note 324 – ‘He Has Not Forgotten Me!‘
325 – ‘Should I Look For Love On An Online Dating Site?‘
Note 326 – ‘Will My Singleness Ever End?‘
Note 327 – ‘God – The Best Gift Giver‘
Note 328 – ‘Hope Is Not Lost And Delay Is Not Denial‘
Note 344 – ‘To The Love Of My Life (Not Yet Met)‘

Also, under the ‘BIBLE-BELIEVING Daughters’ page:

Note 326 – ‘Do You Believe He Will Do It?’
Note 82 – ‘Unbelief Cannot Come!’
Note 106 – ‘They Can Think Whatever They Like, God Will Do Whatever He Pleases’
Note 317 – ‘When The Dream Is Dead’

Additionally, under the ‘COURTING OR ENGAGED Daughters’ page: